By Drew Stepek
Published by Alphar
RJ and his gang are a little bit different than the average LA street gang. Sure, they are all druggies and thieves, assholes and idiots, but…the Knucklers are vampires.
They don’t sparkle or get all goo-goo-eyed, and they sure as well aren’t ‘vegetarians’. Just as RJ is trying to figure out what to do with the 12 year old human prostitute named Bait that’s house-crashed, a rival vampire gang instigates a bizarre situation that reeks of a setup. On top of all that fun stuff, RJ’s second in command is being a dick and trying to take over.
From the beginning, this book is very different than any recent vampire novel I’ve come across. The vamps in this book are hard-core killers, all addicted to drugs, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get their fixes. They don’t have fangs, so getting blood requires some work. There’s no romance in their bites (except for Eldritch). Knuckle Supper features some pretty unique characters—there’s the ‘rasta’ vampire gang, the transsexual vampire gang, the preppy gang, and the average white-boy gang, the Knucklers. Each group had their own quirks, and Stepek did an awesome job in giving the crazy characters realistic, believable (despite the vampirism, obviously!) personalities. RJ starts off as an asshole, but as the story progresses and Bait becomes a huge presence in his life, he begins to discovery his humanity. It’s not a sudden, miraculous, let’s-do-the-right-thing-now process, but slow and RJ crashes and burns in the midst of his good intentions.
Bait is an unusual character. She starts off as the provocative, precocious, too-mature kid. As she begins to wrap RJ around her finger, she allows herself to be, well, a kid. It’s cute and you can’t help but love the annoying twerp. She’s adopted RJ as a father figure, and it’s hilarious when RJ starts acting like her dad. It’s completely opposite of who he is. As the story progresses, his protectiveness and dedication to saving Bait is actually pretty moving and heartbreaking. Even his gang starts to come around and care for the wild kid. She’s obsessed with vampires, and refuses to believe that all vampires are like RJ and his crew. Even as precocious as she is, Bait is innocent and RJ strives to protect that, once he’s used to her. When his sidekick Dez starts to turn on him, Dez’s target is Bait.
Knuckle Supper is fun to read. It’s so hard not to ‘cast’ this book while you’re reading it. Terry Crews would play an awesome King Cobra. Chris Pine is RJ. Jon Bernthal is Shane, and Abigail Breslin would be perfect as Bait. All the characters are crazy and unique. Eldritch is a lunatic, and I hope the second book in the series has him in it. I completely didn’t expect him to take the turn he did, but I loved it. The transsexual vampire gang—awesome. They get what they deserve. The end of the book is heartbreaking, but sets up RJ as a fantastic, kick-ass anti-hero.
While it’s a fun, engaging, absolutely mesmerizing book, it has a lot of really sensitive content, mostly involving Bait. She’s a child prostitute, and even though RJ tries, he can’t protect her all the time. A lot of bad shit happens to the little girl, luckily, most of it ‘off screen’. The gore itself isn’t startling or shocking, especially if you’re used to horror fiction. The kill scenes is one of things about the book that I didn’t especially like, and I usually skimmed through. My problem was there seemed too many hands and mouths and arms going all at once, so it was hard to figure out who was doing what to who, where, and how. Another issue was the editing. The first half of the book is very clean and I didn’t notice anything, but at that halfway mark, I started noticing misspelled words, missing punctuation, and at least one name changed spellings, minor stuff like that.
Knuckle Supper has a permanent place on my ‘keeper’ shelf. If you’re looking for the ‘anti-Twilight’, or a different kind of vampire novel, or just something fun and unique, grab a copy of Knuckle Supper.
Rating: (4 out of 5):
Comments
One of my first legit writing gigs was for the Film Threat website. Chris Gore has been a staunch ally of mine throughout several hard times in my career - even getting me on TV and writing me a recommendation for graduate school. Film Threat is an awesome entity.
That is totally awesome you remember that. Thank you. That just brought such a big smile to my face.
D
For me, Film Threat magazine was like the internet before the internet even existed.
I'm a little regretful that I cut up most of my FT magazines and stuck pictures from obscure cult films all over my schoolbooks.
Yes, I was quite an odd duck in high school.
Holy smokes. Cash B... that would be one and the same. Before I moved to LA, I bought it from the bookstore where my mom worked. I came to LA and it was my very first job after college. That is totally awesome you remember that. Thank you. That just brought such a big smile to my face.
D
The same Drew Stepek who used to write for Film Threat when they were an actual print magazine?
I used to buy that magazine here in Australia even thouhgh it was about $15 a copy.
Note: I got an email from the author clarifying something-- the editing errors are not in the public version of the book. I didn't realize I'd gotten an ARC! So ignore that part of the review!