Declan Finn's The Neck Romancer (Honeymoon from Hell, Book 1)

It’s always nice when old friends stop by to tell you how they’ve been, what’s been going on and how many bodies they’re stacking up currently. I see I caught you unprepared for the last clause of that sentence. That’s okay. It just means you need to go out and read Declan Finn’s The Neck Romancer (Honeymoon from Hell, Book 1). Stacking bodies does seem to be something the Catalanos are inordinately good at.

The two main characters, Marco (the borderline psychotic killer) and his new wife Amanda (the vampire) keep running into problems that can only be solved with the application of high amounts of force, often ending in a permanent stoppage of breathing for those that have attacked them. That’s assuming that the offenders were breathing in the first place, which isn’t always true. Zombies tend to show up uninvited on a fairly regular basis.

And that’s the crazy part. I happen to know that Honeymoon from Hell is supposed to be a five part series. I was kind of skeptical though. I mean, Finn is an amazeballs writer. I’ve reviewed a ton of his stuff in the past. I wasn’t worried about it being a quality story. What I could not, for the life of me, fathom is how he was going to stretch a honeymoon into five books.

If The Neck Romancer is any indication, Finn is going to make this work. There is an ungodly amount of action packed in to a couple of days in Chicago that I almost had to read it twice to realized how little time went by after they got off the train. It was insane. This thing cooks with grease. I was having trouble keeping up. I loved it.

Marco has himself a serious hate on for the city of Chicago. As a lifelong Detroiter, I can almost feel him. I mean, when you grow up as a sports fan in the Motor City, you learn to HATE Chicago teams. I used to love watching the Red Wings and the Blackhawks beat on each other (and I mean that literally. The brawls were epic) when that was still a thing. As a Pistons fan, I’m contractually obligated to hate Michael Jordan and to remember that he only earned five of his six rings. He got his first one by whining to the league about dirty play from the Bad Boys. The Bears and the White Sox are division rivals. I love to see our rivals fail, especially when they’re playing us.

ON THE OTHER HAND…

I’ve been to Chicago multiple times. I love the town. I’ve been to Navy Pier. I’ve partied on Brush Street. I’ve been to the Museum of Science and Industry. I once walked into the Lincoln Park Zoo not knowing it was free to get in and wondering if I was going to be accosted by zoo employees or the police. (True Story.) I love the city itself. Well, except for Soldier Field and the 70s SF nightmare of a flying saucer that crashed on top of it. Seriously though, Chicagoans are quality people and they’re always friendly unless you’re wearing Red Wings gear. I know this from experience.

Bottom Line: I’m not sure how to react to Marco’s hate for the city. I will say this much though: It was entertaining as all get out. Watching Marco melt down every few chapters about the newest affront by the “Second City” was funny. It had me chuckling along, waiting for the next burning building. And there are quite a few of those.

One would assume that being married to a vampire would be a problem for a devout Catholic, but Marco seems to be adapting to it fairly well. The fact that his wife drinks blood certainly hasn’t cooled his ardor any. Marco seems like the kind of guy who knows how to enjoy his honeymoon properly if only the bad guys would let him. And that does seem to be an issue.

The villains of the piece, both normal and supernatural, are kind of unfriendly in an “I’m happy to kill you” sort of way. One is an old friend. The other works for him. Some gang bangers show up and cause problems just for kicks. The Gangster Disciples show up. I should talk to Finn, and see if I ever told him about the time I came face to face with a group of Gangster Disciple Queens (the ladies auxiliary) in their war uniforms. Marco’s willingness to engage with them exceeds mine, I’ll just put it that way.

Of course, the fun in any Declan Finn novel comes from the whacky weaponry involved. He puts kind of a different spin on it then he did in the St. Tommy NYPD novels but that’s okay. Somewhere deep in Finn’s mind there is a dark place that is always coming up with some new way to destroy a supernatural menace. I mean, sure, silver bullets are cool but what’s better than a knife with hidden powers and weirdness? Half of the reason I pick up a new Finn authored novel is to see what new ways he can come up with to off stuff that is either already dead or just flat out evil. Or possibly both come to think of it.

We get to learn a lot about Marco that I hadn’t suspected previously. (This is the first book in the series, but there was another series before it.) I enjoyed that part of the story. It explains a lot. We also get to learn a lot about his family. Keep your eye on the crazy cousin. That’s all I’m saying. It’s good advice though. You’ll know them when you see them.

All in all, I already have the next one in my possession and you’ll be reading my thoughts about it here. I can’t wait. Marco has always been the guy I want to be if I ever become borderline insane and heavily armed. (Still working on the heavily armed part. It’s not looking good.) By the way, I’ll be voting for this one for the Dragon Awards, probably in horror. It’s got a vampire in it.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Thermite Packages

The Neck Romancer (Honeymoon from Hell, Book 1)
Declan Finn
Self Published, 2024

The Neck Romancer (Honeymoon from Hell, Book 1) is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

The Neck Romancer (Honeymoon from Hell, Book 1)