Bound in Blood

Debut novel of a swank gay-vampire series set in Greenwich Village. Jean-Luc Courbet, who bounds over tall buildings, has been around for more than 100 years and, in fact, attended the premiere of Moussorgski's "Boris Godunov "at the Bolshoi in 1888, which he recalls while having a neck of a long drink in his box at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera. Jean-Luc is a towering snob (the Met is dowdy, American apartments are too squat to be graceful), though in the States he calls himself "Jack." Just arrived on this shore, Jack takes up Village digs and cruises nightly for trim, well-built men, drinking them dry during their raptures as he sodomizes them. Though his beauty narcotizes his victims, we have a hard time warming up to this ice-cold hero, whose normal temperature gives his victims goose-bumps. Before setting forth each evening, with cowboy boots to give him extra height, Jack first sends forth his dark-winged spirit to scan Village streets for the victim whose blood will keep vampirism healthy in his ageless flesh. Nice facts about Jack: he stocks his apartment with food and toilet paper he never uses; his sebaceous glands secrete no oil, so he leaves no fingerprints; he makes love with sexy little nips and bites over an hour's passage, the victim unaware of blood loss. The narrative darts about France and London in long italicized passages as we discover Jean-Luc's origins: his mother, Noel Courbet, 14 when she gave birth to her bastard, went on to become France's greatest actress before Bernhardt. Vastly rich (and blood-sucking) Phillipe de Charnac "turned" Noel, married her, then turned his stepson and became Jean-Luc's lover before Noel murdered him. She spends the rest of the novel chasing Jean-Luc, intending to kill him as well. Jack, meanwhile, falls for frighteningly beautiful Claude Halloran. Will Jack turn Claude? Will Noel fry Jack? Readably bloody, gay lore galore, but regrettably lacking in gay humor. (Kirkus Reviews)