A gang of famous monsters is on a globe-trotting adventure to save the very humans who had often shunned them. This team-up between Count Dracula, the werewolf Contessa, Saul Frankenstein, and the Invisible Man—a group described as a “battered band of beasts"—are all that stands in the way of true evil overtaking the world.

From its opening chapter, which finds a reincarnated woolly mammoth turn vampire and scare off a band of yetis, John DeGuire’s HOLIDAY SPIRIT BOOK 3: Monsters Arise! is tremendous fun. It's a ripping gothic blockbuster full of action and no little humor, the fitting culmination to a trilogy in which the author’s sheer enthusiasm and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink style plotting makes the pages fly by. As if it weren’t enough that DeGuire has corralled so many classic monsters into the “Holiday Spirit” series, Book 3 finds Sherlock Holmes joining in the fun. This very modern Holmes seems to have kicked his opium and is instead powered by ketamine and Adderall. Understandably, DeGuire takes liberties with the characterization of the rest of his cast; this is certainly not a book for purists. The idea of the anti-hero team-up is probably more common in comic books and graphic novels—something acknowledged by the appearance of comic book legend Bill Sienkiewicz’s art on the novel's cover.

Locations shift quickly, from arctic wastelands to a steaming jungle to treacherous mountain hide-outs. The roller-coaster plotting can sometimes get a little confusing, but best advice is to just hold on to the Count’s cape and enjoy the ride. Likewise, DeGuire’s prose holds nothing back and is often unapologetically tinged with purple. Take this passage when Frankenstein tackles a giant glass spider: “The fractured splurge of bloody pieces of blue ice and vitreous splooshed about as Saul continued drilling and diving forward into her monstrous pedipalps, which led to her massive cephalothorax, leaving a trail of hemolymph.” But no matter how preposterous some of the action may be, it is always served with wry humor (tongue firmly in cheek). The battle quoted above concludes with Frankenstein’s drill-hand “whirring in disgust, splaying forth bits of the not-so-itsy-bitsy spider.”

In the end, DeGuire’s gothic styling and the sheer audacity of his over-the-top story will bring a smile to all but the most curmudgeonly of monster hunters.

Anybody with an affection for old-school classic horror movies will find John DeGuire’s HOLIDAY SPIRIT BOOK 3: Monsters Arise! a whole heap of fun.

~ Kent Lane for IndieReader