by Ray Wallace

The Fixer
by Jon F. Merz
Pinnacle Books      

Vampires. Ah, yes, those good ol' bloodsucking fiends. Those undead creatures of the night. Those immortal hunters of man. Popularized, oh, those many years ago by one Mr. Bram Stoker. Could he have suspected the impact of his novel upon future generations of horror writers? Probably not. Could he have imagined the sheer volume of tales written about his titular monster's brethren? Again, probably not. The vampire has become a mainstay of modern horror. It has become what the dragon is to fantasy, what the robot is to science-fiction. Dare we call it a cliché? When handled by the wrong hands, we undoubtedly could. Fortunately there have been a number of talented writers who have taken stabs at this sub-genre that is vampire fiction: Stephen King, Anne Rice, Poppy Z. Brite, Brent Monahan, Lucius Sheppard, and Brian Lumley to name a few. Now along comes a man named Jon F. Merz who wishes to give it a try, to put his own twist on the mythology with his book THE FIXER. And how well does he succeed? Will he be numbered among the greats who have so artfully progressed the field of vampire fiction or among the hacks who have threatened to turn it into that dreaded cliché? Or will he fall somewhere in between?

The book immediately introduces us to Lawson, the story's main character, a "fixer" or type of bounty hunter whose job it is to assassinate vampires who have stepped out of line, whose actions have threatened to reveal to the ignorant humans that a vampire population secretly exists in their midst. Lawson is a vampire himself, a man whose path was decided by the Council—the vampire society's ruling body—while he was still just a boy. And, yes, I say "man" and "boy" for these vampires are not your usual undead creatures. They are, in fact, as alive as any human in the book, are actually a separate race that co-evolved alongside the shorter-lived, less resilient, less blood-thirsty (literally speaking) Homo Sapiens. And why is the vampire Council so apprehensive about exposure to the weaker humans? Well, there is much talk throughout the book about ancient customs, about the way things have always been, about the Balance and the possible Chaos that would ensue if said Balance was ever disrupted. Maintaining this Balance is at the core of any fixer's, and thus Lawson's, ideology. Of course, there are those among the vampires who don't agree with this philosophy, who believe that the old ways are simply that, old, and that it is time for a change.

Enter Cosgrove, the tale's primary antagonist.

Now Cosgrove is your basic psycho vampire with a penchant for extreme bloodlust and major delusions of grandeur. This is a vampire who has no problem littering the streets of Boston with blood-drained corpses, going out of his way, it seems, to draw all sorts of unwanted attention to the clandestine vampire society. So it is up to Lawson to take Cosgrove out. Easier said than done, of course. Cosgrove, we quickly discover, is a pretty bad mother and it seems that he and Lawson have some serious history between them, bringing about a situation where the prey knows the hunter just as well as the hunter knows the prey. As the book moves along, we also come to find out that Cosgrove is no simple nutcase, that it is not merely exposure of the vampires to human society that he seeks. Oh, no, not at all. He has much bigger plans than that. Plans he will stop at nothing to achieve.

THE FIXER is, if nothing else, a very readable, highly entertaining novel. Lawson is a likeable character, a rough-and-tumble action hero who also has his share of human weaknesses. The book contains a number of interesting vampire history lessons, a story of forbidden love, questions of loyalty and morality, and, of course, an ancient evil. And it is this bit about the ancient evil that I have the biggest problem with. The book does a more than admirable job of setting up a dark world filled with vampires without involving any supernatural elements at all. The existence of the vampire race is explained scientifically—their fangs, bloodlust, and aversion to light simply the result of thousands of years of evolution. And then towards the end, when Cosgrove's plan is finally revealed, the book suddenly reverts to the supernatural, a plot turn that just feels out of place. This is not to say that it ruins the book. It doesn't. The book is still a lot of fun to read. It just would have been interesting to see Mr. Merz resolve his tale using only the laws of science upon which the world of THE FIXER was created.