Blood Conspiracy

Brooklyn Shadows, Book 2

By: Brock Deskins

Narrated by: Brock E. Deskins

Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

I’ve spent the last year cleaning up the mess Percy left after his failed coup. It isn't glamorous, but it’s a job, and it pays well enough. 

Percy altered the Cure in a way to make it easier to create his little vampire army, but his new vampires have attitude problems and are worse at playing by the rules than I am, and they are the mess I’m trying to clean up. No biggie, I’m pretty good at that kind of housecleaning. The only problem is that someone called the cops on Percy’s little house party. 

Homeland security got hold of the new and improved Cure, made their own vampire anti-terrorist unit, and dropped them into freaking Yemen. Like most ill-conceived government projects, this one went bad real fast, and guess who has to fix it? Now I have to hunt down and kill these rogue vampires, take on the US government, and destroy all evidence of our existence. And, oh yeah, there’s a freaking bomb in my head.

©2014 Brock E. Deskins (P)2019 Brock E. Deskins

Another great Deskins story - with vampires!

Since The Miscreant and its sequel The Agent I've been a Brock Deskins fan, so when I got the opportunity to listen to and review this title, I grabbed the chance with both hands (I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review).

Now this is part 2 in the Brooklyn Shadows series, so I went ahead and bought myself part 1 in the Kindle version first. Which is a great and hilarious story in itself btw (highly recommend).

Blood Conspiracy continues with the same chagrined vampire main character Leo we know and love, some of the same minor characters and several new ones, human and otherwise. There are some references to events in part 1 so I would recommend starting with part 1, but I guess you could manage with only part 2 as well, since it's a whole new adventure.

The tone of this second part is a bit more serious than the first, and I had really hoped that my favorite side kick Marvin would have gotten a bigger part than he did, for he made me laugh out loud several times in part 1. Nevertheless it's a great adventure, and it even comes with a romantic interest for Leo.

Narration is done by the author himself; it's not bad, and I had no problems listening to him for several hours, but I have to say that I like professional narrators better. It has to do with inflection and voice acting; his narration sounded a bit monotonous. Another point of improvement are his accents: although he does some nice accents for several characters, they all sound alike, French and Russian are hardly distinguishable from eachother. I'm sure he'll improve in the future, which is why I'm trying to be specific with my feedback here. I do appreciate his efforts, and I understand that it can be costly to hire professionals.

Anyway, I do recommend this fun vampire PI series and am looking forward to part 3 and, hopefully, more...

Deskins... write don't read

I'm sorry going from the first book to this one was a huge shock, I did my best to enjoy his interpretation of his book... the main character sounds like a 1890's wild Western character... the accents are all Spanish even the Russian ones... saving Grace to this is that his story is great with fantastic characters you can love. please let someone else redo this book please

Love Cynical Vampires

This story begins with cynical vampire Leo, and we follow him through a whole mess of shenanigans. Since I came into this story on book two without reading the first one, I wasn’t sure what to think of Leo, but even though he can be a bit, I’ll say bold, at times, he was definitely one of those characters you find yourself rooting for.

While it references events from book one, the story was laid out in a way that it isn’t entirely necessary to read the first one to know what was going. I wasn’t crazy about the narration, but it was okay.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Yes!!!

Mr. Deskins is one of those rare writers that can create characters you can't get enough of. This audio is no exception. His choice in narrator's is. and has been perfect in all his releases. You won't go wrong in picking this as your next choice.
This audio was given to me free, and I voluntarily gave this review.

Good sequel

BLOOD CONSPIRACY by Brock Deskins is the second book in the Brooklyn Shadows series. It follows the adventures of Leonard "Leo" Malone, a vampire private detective who does more work for the Russian mob than more legitimate clients. Leo is a rude jerkass with decidedly retrograde beliefs about how the world should work but slightly less of a monster than the majority of undead in New York City.

This book opens with Leo continuing his usual song and dance with the NYPD. He's gotten somewhat sloppy taunting Detective Castillo and she comes close to arresting him. Unfortunately, Leo still has the benefit of vampirism as well as an incredibly effective lawyer to keep him out of a sunlit jail cell.

Unfortunately, Leo's actions have made him obvious to a group with less scruples than the police. Which is sadly a pretty damning statement these days. Leo is scooped up by the Federal government and involuntarily recruited into their version of the supernatural Suicide Squad. Joining him is his sire, Leslie, who has no loyalty to the rest of the vampire race but will gladly sell them all to preserve herself.

I was a little bit offput by the premise to begin with as I much preferred the gritty noir storyline of the previous book to the idea of sending Leo off into the desert to fight a renegade undead military squad. Thankfully, this is only part of the book and we quickly see Leo do his best to try to turn the tables on his captors as well as deal with the government knowing about the undead.

My favorite character from the book is definitely Leslie and I wish she'd played a bigger role in the story. Leo blames her for the whole vampire thing but it's clear most of his mistakes are his and his alone. Leslie adds some desperately needed female energy to the cast since Katherine, Leo's girl, doesn't have much personality beyond supporting Leo.

I have to admit I like when people mix vampires and government conspiracy. The Men in Black are a traditional part of urban fantasy mythology. Here, the government is keeping itself compartmentalized to avoid a panic among the public. This is as good an excuse as most to keep the supernatural secret and works well for explaining why our heroes are only now dealing with a covert agency.

I was very interested in the efforts of Agent Snow and Detective Castillo this time around. Agent Snow underestimates how dangerous his vampire "assets" are but manages to put up the kind of attitude that makes you think he knows what he's doing. I like Detective Castillo's dogged determination to take down Leo and kind of wish she was his love interest instead of the werewolf Katherine. Leo underestimates humans and it's a weakness that they take advantage of, even though we'll have to wait until the next book to see how badly he's screwed up here.

The pace is fast, entertaining, and full of fun twists. Leo isn't always likable and some of his comments reach the point of wanting to punch him in the face. Despite this, I enjoyed following him on his adventure across three continents. He will always be someone that I appreciate most when he's stalking humans in the Big Apple, though.

Excellent Series

Love this vampire “kind of a hero” series. Leo has issues but he tries to do the right thing. Like that there are Werewolves included. The characters are bad but good and the back/forth quips between Leo (the ass) and others are entertaining. The Nonchalant narrating takes getting used to tho.

Entertaining

This is the first book I’ve read/listened to by this author. The main character has a no-nonsense attitude, and is a sarcastic jerk, especially to Lucile ( who he is an unwilling partner to in this caper). Maybe that comes from being an immortal vampire. Forced to help hunt down some government created vampires, he has to complete the mission while finding a way to remove the bomb in his head (put there by the people who “enlisted” him). Good thing he seems to be good at his job.
This book is an easy listen yet entertaining. It ends with an obvious lead into the next book.

This is the first book I’ve listened to by this narrator/author( Brock E Deskins ). He reads the story with a bored tone. Maybe it has to do with the flippant attitude of the main character? He has different character voices. At first, I didn’t overly care for his style, but upon listening to parts a second time, I think it’s growing on me.

There are no explicit sex scenes, or excessively gory violence. There is swearing.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review.
Please feel free to comment on whether you found my review helpful.

Great audiobook...very entertaining!

Having previously listened to Deskins’ books The Miscreant and The Agent, I was expecting this audiobook to be full of colorful characters, snark, adventure, and hilarity, and I was not disappointed. Let me start by saying I was not aware of this series previously, so I have not listened to the first book. That did not in any way detract from my enjoyment of this audiobook. I loved the main character and his attitude toward life, the cops, his (supposed) leaders, and his contemporaries. The story is irreverent, sometimes violent, plays on stereotypes, and is just a whole lot of fun and entertainment. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

The narration was pretty good, although I sometimes couldn’t understand the narrator's speech. That said, I think an author narrating his own book has the advantage of knowing what the characters should sound like, and what they are thinking and feeling. Overall, a good job.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Fast paced and action filled

I enjoyed this action filled second book in the Brooklyn Shadows series. Vampire PI, Leo Malone, and his associates find themselves coerced into taking a job to clean up someone else’s mess, but of course, Leo doesn’t just leave it at that.This story is full of action, humor, aggression and has great characters. Leo is sarcastic, cunning, violent and definitely a bit of a jerk, but he is loyal to his friends and has a sense of riotousness hidden underneath his hard, indifferent exterior. I enjoyed the tense interaction between Leo and his creator, and I loved Marvin, his hilarious repartee had me laughing out loud. The narration on this book was done by the author himself and I thought he did a good job for his first attempt. He was easy to listen to, but I did find that the voice he did for Leo was a bit flat. On the other hand, he did an excellent job of Marvin’s voice, bringing out the humor well with his inflection. His accents need a bit of work, but his female voice is good. Over all, this is a fast paced, action packed story that will keep you entertained and you don’t have to have read the first book to be able to follow the story line.

Top of the line!!!!

Mr. Deskins it seems you have wrote a hit!!! This book is over the top good! It can easily become a movie. I hope you consider making a guest appearance on all your books as narrator! You were excellent!!! I highly recommend this book if you're ready for adventure, comedy and all the sarcasm one man can withhold! You won't be disappointed!!!

Very amusing

I found this book to be totally amusing. As it presented a situation where the vampire P.I must do a job for the government because he is kidnapped and has a bomb implanted. He must track down rogue vampires that were created by the government which have gotten out of control and are no longer under their control. The book is full of exciting moment which are hard to imagine the people will survive but they continue to come up with off the wall solutions.

The book is a fun romp and a great read. The narration is outstanding in that the author did the narration and his various characters are done well and with great feeling.

This book was provided free of charge with expectation of an honest review.

Gave me a ‘grin like a masturbating chimp!’

Loved it, loved it, loved it!!
I was sad to see the change of narrator, but Brock did a superb job in his stead. Great pacing, great voices, simply great!
There was less of a feel of detective noir Leo this time round and more Soldier Leo, but it was still jam packed with action and smart ass wise cracking that made book one so damn good!
I literally can’t get enough of this and I’ll be camping outside of Brock’s house (quite a feat as I live in the UK!) until he finishes book 3!
This is my honest opinion of a free review copy!

A great second outing

There is just no quiet life for Leo and I wold have it no other way, this story sends him on an adventure to save not just his world and people but also more importantly himself.

I love the character of Leo he is a charming, foul mouthed, pain in everyone’s arse but despite that he gets the job done.

Character progression is well done in this book as I learned more about Leo and other minor but no less important.

this story takes on an international flavour being set in Yemen and this time Leo is being used as a puppet and he is not happy about it.

The descriptions of the places and the people and things were just on point , I always know it’s good when I can listen and close my eyes and picture along with the story.

The narrator for this great adventure was none other than the author himself , Brock is multi talented being able to write and narrate what’s fast becoming an excellent series.

If you want wild adventure, some strong language, violence but an all round great story then listen to this and the first one.

Strong follow-up

Despite this being the second book in the series, it would still work fine if somebody was to jump into the series at this point, although they would be missing out on a very enjoyable first book if they did that.

This book has got a good balance of a strong main story, escalating problems for the main characters and setting up threads for subsequent books, the nature and age of the main character is going to tend to limit major character changes from book to book, but there were some notable changes later in the book and obviously the supporting cast have more scope to grow than him too.

Authors narrating their own books can be a bit of a mixed bag, they obviously understand their own motivations and can often convey that to the listener better than a professional narrator, but at the same time they do not tend to have the same range as the professional and you can end up with a flatter performance. The author mostly managed to avoid this problem and I did enjoy his tone for the main character, but overall I think I probably enjoyed the narrator from the first book a little more.

Overall, this series started strongly and has improved nicely with this second book and I will be interested in future instalments in the series.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]