“Investigation, Mediation, Vindication.” That’s how the Yellow Pages ad starts, and if it sounds like the sort of thing a drunk teenager might come up with, well, you’d only be wrong about the teenager part.
John Smith owns San Diego’s smallest private investigation firm, but he doesn’t know the first thing about mediation. Or vindication.
On the other side of town, vampire Lucia Borghesi is having a terrible century. Stripped of her throne and banished from Italy, she’s now somehow found herself in a dispute with the local demigod of nightmares and terror. And to top it all off, the long-time city mediator has been assassinated and her second-in-command just hired a human to fill that role.
If he wants to survive, John will need to prove his value to Lucia and her people while keeping that demigod from sucking San Diego into an unnamed hell dimension. And he’ll have to work fast, because his beloved Corolla is parked curbside in Logan Heights, like an open invitation to the neighborhood’s graffiti enthusiasts.
Investigation, Mediation, Vindication by Chris Tullbane is a fun, breezy urban fantasy debut that lives and dies by its voice. And for the most part, that voice delivers. John Smith is snarky, self-aware, and genuinely entertaining to spend time with, even if he occasionally forgets he is twenty-five and not seventeen. You will sigh. You will keep reading anyway.
The comedy is constant and ambitious, and when it lands, it really lands. There are bits in here that are genuinely clever, the kind that make you grin and think, “Okay, yes, that’s exactly right.” San Diego has never felt quite so chaotic, and the urban fantasy backdrop gives Tullbane plenty of room to get weird with it. But the humor swings wide, and not every swing connects. Some of it tips from absurd into baffling, the kind of joke where you stop and go, “…what?” and suddenly you are out of the story rather than in it. The sexual banter falls into the same category, less offensive than just repetitive, a comedy crutch that gets leaned on a few too many times.
John himself is the classic comedy protagonist: spectacularly out of his depth, somehow also great when it counts, occasionally by pure dumb luck. He is the kind of character who survives on charm and narrative convenience, and he is aware of it, which helps. The supporting cast is colourful enough to keep things interesting, even when the plot wanders.
And wander it does. This is not a tightly constructed mystery. But there is real creativity in the chaos, and some of the story’s central conceits are genuinely inspired. The kind of thing where you think, “I cannot believe that is actually the reason for all of this,” and mean it as a compliment.
This is not a book that will stay with you for weeks, but it is an easy, entertaining read with rough edges and real promise. Tullbane’s debut does enough right that I am curious where the series goes next, and for a first book, that is exactly what you want.
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