The Immortal Detective

Woodling’s fun but lopsided sequel to The Immortal Twin opens on detective Celeste Crenshaw coming back from the dead as a vampire—but not by choice. Resigning herself to her immortal fate, Celeste undergoes months of training at the hands of the vampire Elders, who attempt to impart their abilities to her. Still inept with these new powers, Celeste returns to her job at the Kansas City Police Department, but now she works the graveyard shift because of her allergy to sunlight. After the impressive vampiric worldbuilding of the opening chapters, it’s a bit of a letdown when the rest of the book becomes a standard police procedural: Celeste works a complicated sex trafficking case that turns into homicide, and the paranormal is all but forgotten. Still, there’s a fascinating cast and the investigation is well plotted. Readers who enjoy detective stories will get their fix with this one, but anyone looking for supernatural action can skip it. (Mar.)