The Cross

McCabe’s second Vampire Federation urban fantasy (after February 2011’s Uprising) tangles humans and vampires in lugubrious intrigues. Det. Joel Solomon wakes up in Romania and realizes that he’s been turned into the thing he hates most: a vampire. Federation agent and vampire Alex Bishop changed Joel to save his life and must now deal with bureaucratic fallout from recent attacks on the Federation and its members. Meanwhile, skier Chloe Dempsey finds the pieces of a mysterious cross, not realizing the power it has to destroy vampires, but the villainous vampire Gabriel Stone will do whatever it takes to recover it. The multiple characters and complicated stories make the first half of the book a slow read. The pace picks up when they eventually intersect, and a bloody, climactic fight adds some excitement to the end of the story. (Dec.)