DON'T WANT TO BE YOUR MONSTER

A 10-year-old vampire courageously agrees to help two mortal children track down a serial killer.

Readers fond of nocturnal whodunits festooned with sly twists and tweaks from opening page to terrifying climax are in for a treat—but Moulton has much to offer here besides gore and glory. Found as a baby in the ruins of a synagogue following a hate crime and bitten to save his life, Adam has been raised by his vampiric foster moms in strict isolation from dangerous mortals. But so appalled is he to learn of a series of gruesome murders around his hometown of Lacey, Washington, that he nerves himself to hide his fangs with a scarf, control his yearning for blood (something Victor, his toxically adolescent foster bro, is disinclined to do), and join two chance-met amateur investigators: Luis and Shoshana. The killer’s identity makes things complicated and scary—but if, by the end, the threat hasn’t been permanently dealt with, it’s at least resolved for the moment, and Adam has strengthened bonds with not only his mortal friends, but family too, specifically Victor and Sung, his nonbinary, college-aged, Korean foster sibling. Shoshana helps Adam understand how, as an “obligate hemovore,” he can still be Jewish, and this story, which features an ethnically diverse cast, thoughtfully pushes back against significant antisemitic elements in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and vampire lore in general.

Members of persecuted minorities unite to fight crime: icky, impish, and thematically rich.