The Nymphos of Rocky Flats

The Nymphos of Rocky Flats (2006) Mario Acevedo

Michael was actually the one to pick this up, and was also the first to read it. When he finished it, he said it was funny, and that he thought I would like it.

Well, it is funny. And I did like it. But I didn’t love it.

Felix Gomez is a veteran of the Iraq war, a private investigator, and a vampire. Not necessarily in that order. After receiving a phone call from from an old friend who is now in the DOE, Felix drives out to Rocky Flats, Colorado to investigate an outbreak of nymphomania among the female workers at the DOE facility.

With a premise like that, you know a book isn’t going to take itself seriously. Which is why the opening chapter surprised me. It tells of Felix’s conversion to a vampire during a firefight in Karbala, and is surprisingly sad and haunting.

However, after the first chapter things do get silly. Felix must discover what has turned certain women in the facility into nymphomaniacs, and in the meantime, he also meets the local vampires and other supernaturals.

As with all vampire books, the powers and weaknesses of the vampires are a picking and choosing of supernatural folklore as well as other bits thrown in by the author. All of which is fine with me. As I’ve said before, I like seeing what bits of folklore different authors keep and discard when writing about supernatural creatures.

As for the book, the mystery was interesting, if silly. The writing was solid. The characters were fun, although a handful seemed to be interchangeable. It was a fun book, nothing serious, and despite the title, there wasn’t any actually boinking, although there was discussion of boinking, and some working up towards boinking, but no actual boinking. Which was perfectly fine with me.

There was one thing that bugged me however. The vampires constantly talk about how afraid they are of being discovered, yet the go around biting just about everyone to subdue them. Yes, they say the marks heal quickly, but there are marks. So if they’re so afraid of being found out, shouldn’t they be a little more circumspect? He just bit so many people over the course of the investigation I was expecting him to be caught at any moment.

Aside from that, it was a fun, interesting book. I can’t say I’m going to run out and buy the next book(s) in the series, but if I saw them used somewhere I wouldn’t hesitate to pick them up to read.
Rating: 6/10

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