Stainless

Justine is a vampire. Keith just lives like one. An ex-junkie and ex-rock star, his hands mangled by his dead ex’s own jealous ex, he’s let go of his ambitions. He’s content to be Justine’s live-in Renfield, helping her pick up dinner when she needs a bite, keeping an eye on her lavish L.A. manor when the sun is out and she’s down for her beauty sleep. It’s true that Justine has been around for a few centuries and Keith barely three decades, but they’re good for each other: Justine is teaching Keith to take the long view; Keith is reminding her how it feels to be alive. Yet a cohort of criminals, desperate artists, dead-enders, hangers-on, and wanna-bes, undead and otherwise, threaten their curious union. Can love stay untainted in a world of monsters?

First published in 1996, Todd Grimson’s Stainless is a noir fantasia, a symphony of bloody horror, and a woozy, erotic tour of night-side L.A. Not only is it the greatest vampire novel of the twentieth century, it may be the last, best farewell to the mythic Los Angeles of Bette Davis, Dennis Hopper, and Less than Zero. In a league with the best of James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler—and closing the coffin for good on poor old Bram Stoker—Stainless is the final word on fangs, hangovers, and heartbreak.