Judge Dee and the Poisoner of Montmartre, the third of Lavie Tidhar’s Golden Age detective (but with vampires) short stories for Tor.com, sees the eponymous vampire judge and his human companion Jonathan in Paris, remaining in one place for an unusually long time. Even as Jonathan enjoys a measure of stability, not to mention plenty of good French food, he wonders what it is that’s keeping them in Paris, as the normally ascetic judge spends his time attending plays and mingling with Paris’ vampiric population. When a dinner party turns bloody, however, the judge has his work cut out identifying the culprit, given that every vampire in attendance had motive for murder.
There’s an inevitability to this sort of story, a comfortable shape that means the process of getting to the bottom of the mystery is as satisfying as the solution itself. In this case the first half of the story mostly revolves around Jonathan enjoying his food and absolutely not enjoying the plays he’s dragged to, while observing the various vampires he encounters in all their baroque, slightly daft strangeness. It’s oddly satisfying to see Jonathan actually almost enjoying himself, given his usual propensity for miserably following the judge around and moping, even if he does revert to type as the second half of the story becomes more dangerous and distinctly less comfortable for him. After all, he is surrounded by vampires, to whom normal rules rarely apply.
This is enough of a standalone story to not require reading the first two in order to enjoy it, but given how great the previous stories are it’s definitely worth reading them all, and the first one in particular to get the full picture of the judge and his purpose. While this doesn’t stray too far from the general mould for the series, with its weirdly effective mix of cosy crime and supernatural creatures in a sort of vaguely Medieval setting, with the main characters well established now there’s much less time spent here on exploring the nature of vampiric jurisprudence. Instead, Tidhar is clearly having fun expanding this world, slowing things down a bit and giving the characters room to really breathe. It’s another hugely entertaining little story, full of warmth and humour and memorable characters, and suggests that there’s scope for plenty more adventures in this delightful series.
See also my reviews of the first two short stories in this series:
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