After morphing into 187 very large white rats in the name of self-preservation, Jules Duchon is back to his portly self, a member of that secret class of New Orleans citizens known as the undead. Though he would like nothing better than to spend his nights raising hell and biting flesh in his beloved French Quarter, duty calls when an exclusive club of blue blood vampires demands that the 450-pound cabbie find out who is attacking its young and beautiful members. Adding insult to injury, he has to enlist the help of a former foe: a black vampire named Preston. What’s a vampire to do? Without the love of a woman to ease his pain, Jules isn’t convinced that his undead life is worth living. He doesn’t desire Doodlebug (she may be a woman now but Jules knew her back when she was just a boy) any more than he longs for Daphne, a rat catcher who nourishes a crush the size of Jules. No, only Maureen will do. Once a beautiful stripper with nothing but curve after curve to her bodacious body, now she is mere dust in a jar. But Jules will move heaven and earth to get her back . . . even if it means pulling her back from the dead. After vampire Jules Duchon, hero of Fat White Vampire Blues [BKL Ap 15 03], lost the love of his afterlife, Maureen, he transformed himself into 187 white rats, hoping to escape his pain. Now his old cohort, Doodlebug, who desperately needs Jules' help, has tracked down and reassembled all but one rat, and the missing one contains a crucial piece of equipment. The leader of the High Krewe of Vlad Tepes, New Orleans' most exclusive vampire group, has ordered Doodlebug to track down the person responsible for maiming several younger High Krewe vampires. Motivated in part by Doodlebug's promise to try to resurrect Maureen, Jules does agree to help. The case intensifies when Jules discovers a link to the black vampire group he previously butted heads with. But the black vampires are upset by the deaths of several pastors, and it appears that someone may be targeting both groups of vampires. Fox follows up Jules' first adventure with more laugh-out-loud vampire exploits and fun. Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved After morphing into 187 very large white rats in the name of self-preservation, Jules Duchon is back to his portly self, a member of that secret class of New Orleans citizens known as the undead. Though he would like nothing better than to spend his nights raising hell and biting flesh in his beloved French Quarter, duty calls when an exclusive club of blue blood vampires demands that the 450-pound cabbie find out who is attacking its young and beautiful members. Adding insult to injury, he has to enlist the help of a former foe: a black vampire named Preston. What's a vampire to do? Without the love of a woman to ease his pain, Jules isn't convinced that his undead life is worth living. He doesn't desire Doodlebug (she may be a woman now but Jules knew her back when she was just a boy) any more than he longs for Daphne, a rat catcher who nourishes a crush the size of Jules. No, only Maureen will do. Once a beautiful stripper with nothing but curve after curve to her bodacious body, now she is mere dust in a jar. But Jules will move heaven and earth to get her back . . . even if it means pulling her back from the dead. Andrew Jay Fox  is the author of Fat White Vampire Blues and Bride of the Fat White Vampire . He  was born in 1964 and grew up in North Miami Beach, Florida. The first movie he remembers seeing is Japanese monster fest Destroy All Monsters, viewed from the backseat of his stepdad’s Caprice convertible. Early passions included Universal horror movies, 1950s giant monster flicks, WWII navy dramas, Planet of the Apes, and horror comics, particularly Marv Wolfman’s and Gene Colan’s “Tomb of Dracula.” ONE Rory “Doodlebug” Richelieu shivered as he walked up the dark gravel path toward the fifteen-foot-high walls surrounding the High Krewe’s compound. A vampire shouldn’t be afraid of the dark, he told himself. Yet the short walk from where a cab had let him off on Metairie Road through these gloomy woods, barely lit by a weak moon, had seriously creeped him out. He wished he’d worn a shawl. His lightweight linen dress and lace hosiery were fine for the Quarter, but here they left him feeling chilled. And the heels of his pumps sank into the gravel, nearly causing him to twist an ankle several times. When he was ten feet from the gate, something scurried near his feet. He saw something run into the underbrush, a mouse or squirrel or maybe a small rat. Doodlebug smiled a wistful smile. The tiny mammal had made him think of Jules. As he had innumerable times during the past eight months, Doodlebug wondered how the Fates had been treating his vanished friend. He hoped with all his heart that Jules had found happiness. The iron gates towered before him like the entrance to one of Dante’s inner circles of Hell. Doodlebug press