George Parker

Vampyre Lawyer Review: Imagine you're a Vampyre. Yes, with a "y." You're very good at what you do, but you're tired of the Dusk-to-Dawn Life and you wish to give up your evil ways. So you time travel 150 years into the future, join a Goth rock band, move to the USA, and begin a search for a lawyer to represent you as you defend yourself against persecution and the unconscionable inaccuracies found in Anne Rice's blockbuster novel, Interview with a Vampire. How do you think such a journey would work out for you? George Parker gives us just such a character in his hilarious send-up, Vampyre Lawyer. In this highly entertaining novel, no less a personage than Count Dracula himself descends upon 21st century New Orleans and, while many in The Big Easy do not even notice such an anomalous individual on the street, his presence and, in particular, his quest for a virtuous attorney set in motion a preposterous but uproarious set of events involving a psychopathic prosecutor in the District Attorney's office, a mysterious tailor, illegal Romanian refugees, a refined Mob boss with a taste for orchids and the classics, a wet-behind-the-ears newlywed law school graduate, a vulturous journalist and, of course the internationally acclaimed music group the Techno Zombies. The farcical characters "Drac" encounters during his sojourn in another century, from the Zombies' guitar player Shelley Byron to the Madame Defarge-type figure Momma Momar and villainous D.A. Richard Bleddon (get it? - it's a vampire story), affirm our suspicion that we are in the lively presence of Chauceresque satire. The plot's vignettes, including an organized crime board meeting conducted in accordance with parliamentary procedure, a miraculous cure in a hospital operating room, a flawlessly planned and incredibly bungled "hit" and a bizarre knitting needle attack by an old woman do likewise. Unexpectedly, once ensconced in New Orleans, Drac himself hovers on the edges of the story as the nutty characters affected, directly or not, by his arrival in their town romp all over one another in a tangled riot of criminal activity, cover ups, miscues, magic, mayhem, and innocent misunderstandings, all of which eventually give Drac the opportunities he seeks to redeem his troublesome past forever. Right up to the denouement in a flour coated pasta mill, complete with a very theatrical curtain call involving the entire cast, Parker has provided a laugh on every page.