Night Shade Books Black Lotus Kiss: A Brimstone Files Novel

This is the 2nd Brimstone Files novel, which is an occult detective series that's set in the 70s and emulates the style of pulp mystery from that era. I liked the first novel, but this time around not so much. The hero, James Brimstone, just came off as an unlikeable jerk for way too much of this book, and the "plot" seemed to mostly consist of him randomly wandering from one place to another and coincidentally stumbling across clues. Then there's the book's MacGuffin, the Black Lotus, which is a mystical flower, lost since prehistory, which is used as a drug that seems seems to randomly either turn you into a berserker, kills you, acts a super steroid, or heals you depending on the needs of the plot. This one put me off so much that if there's a third one, I'll probably pass on it.

I really liked the first book in this series. This one not so much. The story was all over the place and not that interesting. I know the author is a liberal but he's over the top. He must really hate being a white male. Every minority that he sees in this book fills him with extreme guilt as if some how he is personally responsible for any slight or injustice (real or perceived) that happened over the last 4 centuries. Get over yourself.