This is a review for Michael Ferry’s upcoming Vampire novel, The Legend of Vanessa Man. The book is both brilliant and dark. And the darkness doesn’t come from the shadow lurking vampires. Ferry paints a vivid picture of the dark side of America, often forgotten in the media. He weaves his story through the underbelly of crooked cops, streetwalking transexual hookers, single mom escorts, prescription pain abusers, and even more crooked cops.
The vampires and dark magic take a back seat in the first half of the book, but the intense cat and mouse will have you flipping through to the next chapter. “The Legend Of” is a thriller, and to be a thriller, it has to be relatable. Ferry nails this because every reader has an addict friend or family member, and we have all heard stories about dirty law enforcement. The novel intertwines real-life characters that don’t just feel relatable, they feel real. Steinbeck wrote about poor farmers in the same way Ferry captures this century’s hookers and lost trangender people of society.
The story begins with transexual streetwalker Vannessa Mann on The Trail in Orlando, Florida. The Trail is the south portion of the road, Orange Blossom Trail, also known as OBT. The Trail is notoriously known for prostitutes, drugs, and crime.
Vanessa Mann has just returned home after a trip to Haiti with a sexual client. She has a hunger she can’t fill with food, a thirst for something more (hint, its blood), and a burn on her index finger from the sun. She was transformed into a vampire in Haiti, but she doesn’t remember it ultimately.
Her body is in pain, something that happens as people transfer from humans into vampires, and she needs answers. After sunset, she hits the trail to find her friend, Beau, a knowledgeable vampire semi-expert. She gets picked up by a “john” and finally figures out to end her ‘hunger.’
The story moves to the police side of the chase, and we meet a crooked cop who isn’t trying to change. That’s the moral of this book, the good guys do bad shit, and the bad guys do it too.
David Dimwick is a long-time police officer who knows all the crooks and crannies of the city of Orlando. He knows how to steal “free pussy” for his sex addiction and how to cheat every system. He rips prostitutes off, and he pays for them too. It all depends on his mood, which is bipolar and borderline.
Dimwick gets put onto the case because back when he was a young buck on the force, he went to a clinic on vampires and aliens, and he is one of the only few still on the force who attended this supernatural seminar. Vampires haven’t been seen on American soil since the late 80s, so he is suspicious and doubting they exist the entire time.
Dimwick gets put on the case and works with an F.B.I/C.I.A agent named Ray. Ray is the truth-telling to Dimwick’s denialism. The duo is the only part I didn’t really like about the whole book. Ray isn’t a central character, but when he is involved with Dimwick, it feels like the friction isn’t natural.
The book is an A- only because of that. Dimick starts to hunt Vanessa the Vampire, but is it predator hunting prey, but which one is which? Ferry paints a beautiful picture with his cat and mouse game in the second act of this book, and we learn that no one is truly good nor ultimately bad. People are people (Well, okay, sometimes people are vampires), but my point remains. Ferry wants us to remember that people aren’t innately good or bad.
The first chapter is available now, and the full book will release on Christmas of this year online with paperbacks and hardcovers soon after.
Goodbarz 