SECOND SUNRISE

Is there anything a Navajo half-vampire cop can’t handle? Apparently not. It’s near the end of WWII, and in what must be one of the best pulp openings in years, New Mexico state policeman Lee Nez and his partner encounter a band of Nazi agents hijacking a US Army convoy. In the ensuing bulletfest, Lee’s partner is killed, and Lee buries the convoy’s cargo of Manhattan Project–bound plutonium to keep it safe and confronts the head Nazi, a vampire named Hans Muller, who turns Lee into a vampire himself and leaves him for the sun to destroy. Fortunately, Lee consults a Navajo hataalii, or healer, who’s able to stay the process just enough so that Lee stays immortal and shows some vampirish traits—nothing that a few gallons of sunblock, lots of food (but no human blood), and sunglasses can’t take care of. Sixty years later, Lee’s still a New Mexico cop, living under a different name and trying to rid the state of skinwalkers: shape-changing evildoers with a penchant for leaping out of the dark at him in the form of a snarling wolf—or three. They may also be in league with Muller, who’s alive (of course) and back in New Mexico to look for that missing plutonium. The resulting bloodshed has captured the attention of other law enforcement types, especially attractive FBI Special Agent Lopez, who starts out keeping an eye on Lee but ends up helping him out.

Paced like a hundred-yard dash and yet still somehow a leisurely read. Cross-genre entertainment at the top of its form.