I also found it less insulting to the reader’s intelligence than many paranormal romance books. Davidson doesn’t really explain why Betsy’s corpse wasn’t embalmed, for instance, but at least the issue is raised within the novel.

Toward the end, the Undead and Unwed takes a turn in the power struggle between rival vampire clans direction, a theme I find tiresome. But, on the bright side, Betsy finds it tiresome too, so maybe, just maybe, it won’t dominate future entries in the franchise.

needs more demons? nah.

This time around, what impressed me most was the density of repurposing elements from other recent media: the (powerful young) zombie settler/Settler’s Affairs back drop is very Buffy the vampire slayer/Watcher’s Council. The pom squad/cheerleader social conflict is straight out of Glee. In the second book I was more conscious of tiresome Twilight-ish romantic mooning (and I suspect if I had ever read a “Sweet Valley High” book I might have found points of comparison there, as well). Last time I thought it was a bit unfair of me to brand people yelling vaguely Latin-ish spells like “Reverto!” as derivative of Harry Potter, but this book adds a distinctly Potter-y element to the evolving plot thread as well.

Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments books draw on much of the same source material, but far more successfully. Undead Much leans very, very hard on tall coincidence, and its conclusion is far too much like that of You’re So Undead to Me — both feature a late revelation of the villain’s identity that abandons character consistency, and a big improbable fight scene.

As an adult male I’m admittedly way outside the target demographic for this novel. But there are a plenty of young adult books I have no trouble enjoying. This was not one of them.

I was also a bit creeped out by Undead Much’s treatment of adolescent sexuality. Megan Berry spends a lot of time wondering whether she should become sexually active or not — but because there’s black magic afoot and the blood of virgins has ritual uses, in her situation her life would literally become less complicated if she started having sex. I hate to sound like an old prude, but that seems like a misleading message to send teens.

needs more demons? yeah.

I learned many things, not least of which is that HBO’s polygamous-Mormon-centered soap Big Love, the third season of which we lately finished watching, isn’t nearly as far-fetched as I might have thought. As a proponent of gay marriage, before reading this book I had thought a good place to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable partnerships might be to allow any combination of adult consenting humans, so a marriage of, say, three women and four men might be fine. But after reading Under the Banner of Heaven I’m forced to conclude that raising children in a polygamous culture — particularly one that prioritizes procreation, devalues external education, and requires unquestioning obedience — creates a situation in which “consent” may be a practical impossibility.

As in the prior novel, Irby seamlessly melds real historical figures like Harvey Firestone, Joe Kennedy, Gloria Swanson, and her third husband Henri de La Falaise into his fast-moving, twist-filled plot. Also as in the previous book, Irby leans hard on coincidence, mostly to establish connections between his upper- and lower-crust characters, but that bugged me less this time. Once again, there’s enough accurate historical detail that the reader could learn a few things without it ever getting intrusive.

One feature I didn’t mention when I wrote about 7,000 Clams is that sometimes there’s an additional level of irony. Some of Irby’s descriptions of 1928 could easily apply to other years up to and including 2009, viz a northern society lady’s first glimpse of a swank hotel:

[She] joylessly trudges through the well-appointed lobby of the Flamingo Hotel located on the bay side of Miami Beach. It is a huge, hulking barn of pink stucco, with a decor that strikes her as relentlessly Florida: pastels, marine life, palm fronds. Everything is bigger than it needs to be, glossy to the pint of smarmy, overbearing in its irrepressible invitations to “have fun” and “relax,” and above all dedicated to the haughty display of wealth. Why wear one necklace when six will do just fine? These sunburned barbarians talk loudly, guffaw like baboons, and careen about like they have been jolted with electricity.

(7,000 Clams similarly featured a brief trip to a Baltimore cop bar that was almost like a scene from The Wire.)

Here’s my most telling reaction to this book: If Irby writes another novel about Hearn, I’ll certainly read it. But I hope he doesn’t — I hope he finds some other improbably charming lowlife to write about instead — because I’d like to think that after the conclusion of The Up and Up Hearn might get to live out the rest of his days without anything especially suspense novel-worthy befalling him.

needs more demons? nossir.

needs more demons? not really.

Amy Haskel’s breezy narrative voice is if anything even more assured, and the novel was more satisfyingly structured. Again the major plot driver took several chapters to emerge, but I was less bothered by that than in the first book. Some of the supporting cast is a little thinly developed, and the who-is-he-again? confusion is exacerbated because many characters are referred to both by their real names and their “Rose & Grave” society nicknames, but the publisher helpfully includes a key at the front of the book. And maybe I would have been less confused if I hadn’t been flipping the pages so gosh-darn fast.

Finally, to borrow one of Peterfreund’s devices — I confess: One of the situations set up in the first book didn’t resolve as I had expected after all.

Needs More Demons? Not this time.