Disappearing Nightly

October 2, 2012

Disappearing Nightly (An Esther Diamond Novel, #1)by Laura Resnick

When mysterious mystical disappearances disrupt her career, struggling actress Esther Diamond teams up with Maximillian Zadok, an eccentric elderly wizard whose day job is protecting the Big Apple from Evil. Meanwhile, the sexy NYPD detective investigating the disappearances fears that Esther and Max may be a bigger problem than the vanishing performers. (goodreads.com)

Waaaaay back in the summer this series caught my eye as I was browsing the shelves at the local Chapigo. I didn't pick it up, but with each next visit, I'd gravitate towards the section these were in and look at them again and again. When we got our Kobo (hardly ever used I might add) I thought about picking these up as ebooks, to try and make friends with the eReader. I didn't though. I still can't stomach the thoughts of buying books electronically. Yet the Esther Diamond books were calling to me, so a few weeks ago, while wandering the store (yet again) for a school project (if it weren't for the research papers, this would be the best course ever!) I finally broke down and picked this book up (along with Gone Girl). It's autumn. It's almost Halloween. I love reading books that are the right mood for this time of year.What caught my eye the first time I picked up the book was the reference to this being similar to the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich (which you all know I love, if you read this blog). Humourous, paranormal mysteries? Must. Try. This. STAT!I was not disappointed at all in Disappearing Nightly. It made me laugh, kept me entertained and was very obviously one of those types of reads you can just get lost in and enjoy. The book isn't Urban Fantasy so much as it's a mystery with some supernatural elements, but it's a night, light dose of many of those elements. It's not as slap-stick like as the Evanovich mysteries, but Esther is a very fun character and I liked her immediately. She's smart and competent even if what she's experiencing is way beyond her ability to grasp.What made this book for me though were the secondary characters. I loved the drag queens the most of all of them. I loved that this mystery solving was a total group effort and the banter between all characters flowed easily and with pretty great comedic timing. I wanted to BE there in the bookshop with them. I wanted to help with their research and eat NYC take out with them. Sometimes I find crowded scenes (as in ones with large groups of people) are hard to follow in books, but I could easily picture each character as they spoke, they were all unique enough to distinguish from each other.I hope these characters make appearances in the other novels. I ended up picking up the second book in the series recently and I'm only a few pages in so I don't know if characters from the first book will appear. I hope so! There's a whole new group of people right now, but I love them immensely already. Laura Resnick is really great at writing fun secondary characters!I sort of wish I didn't have so much other stuff I need to do this month because I really want to just sit around and read. October always makes me want to curl up with some sort of mystery, gothic, suspense, creepy book. I'm going through a few right now. (Suggestions are appreciated!) This fun little series is certainly worth picking up! (And yay! I discovered the series when it already had 5 books out! I don't have to wait forever for the next one if I want to read them all right away!)Esther Diamond Novels