While so much of popular fantasy fiction is trying to "Anne Rice" the supernaturals, A. Lee Martinez takes a wholly new angle. Her two (anti) heroes are a pair of down-and-outers who are stranded in the boondocks and agree to help Loretta, the proprietor of Gil's All Night Diner, to remove her zombies and replace her gas line.

Wow! Not just supernatural pest control, but plumbers as well!

Neither member of this scurrilous pair, Duke of Werewolves and Earl of Vampires, is anything special to look at. Duke has a beer belly. Earl doesn't exactly possess the legendary vampiric charm.

And the situations Martinez puts this pair into are extraordinary -- among them, dealing with zombie cows, dealing with Sheriff Marshall Kopp, dealing with a poor put-upon ghost stuck as keeper of her graveyard.

Gil's All Fright Diner keeps you turning pages wondering what whacky and outrageous thing Martinez will get this dysfunctional duo in next. If you get the book, give yourself time to read the 280-approximate pages in as close to one sitting as you can. It's well worth the time.