Felix Gomez Books in Order

The Felix Gomez books are supernatural detective stories with a big, pulpy sense of humor. Felix is a former Army soldier who comes home from Iraq as a vampire, then puts his new abilities to use as a private investigator. He can handle more than an ordinary gumshoe, but immortality has not made his life easier, safer, or less complicated.

Felix works in a version of the modern world where vampires, aliens, zombies, werewolves, and other strange beings exist in secret alongside everybody else. Much of the action begins in Colorado, particularly around Denver and the Front Range, though the cases soon take him farther afield. He follows leads through government facilities, back alleys, vampire hangouts, resorts, and eventually places far beyond Earth.

Nothing stays simple for long.

The opening novel, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, gives Felix a case at the former nuclear-weapons site of Rocky Flats, where bizarre behavior among workers points toward a larger conspiracy. From there, the series keeps its detective backbone while taking sharp turns into adult-film industry intrigue, alien schemes, zombie outbreaks, and a struggle between werewolf factions. Each book gives Felix a new mess to investigate, but earlier cases and relationships continue to matter.

Felix is not a polished, all-powerful hero. He is wary, stubborn, and still carries the weight of his military past. He also tries to hold onto a moral line, including his reluctance to feed on human blood. That choice can leave him at a disadvantage when the fighting starts, and it gives the stories a useful tension beneath their jokes and outrageous premises.

His allies are part of the fun. Carmen Arellano, a vampire with expertise in sex and investigation, becomes an important partner. Coyote, a trickster figure with his own agenda, turns up when Felix needs help, whether Felix likes it or not. The secret vampire authority known as the Araneum also sends Felix on assignments, making him both an investigator and, at times, an enforcer for a hidden world with its own rules.

The tone is hard-boiled noir filtered through urban fantasy. Expect wisecracks, action, double-crosses, monsters, and deliberately over-the-top titles. The books are adult fiction, and sexual material is part of the setting and humor, but the main engine is always the case: someone is missing, someone is lying, and Felix has to sort it out before a secret becomes a disaster.

Start with The Nymphos of Rocky Flats for Felix's origin and the foundations of his world. The early books build most directly on one another, while the later adventures widen the setting and raise the stakes. There is also a graphic-novel side story, Killing the Cobra: Chinatown Trollop, which brings Felix's vampire-detective world to comics.