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Theo Bell is one one of "Vampire: The Masquerade's" most popular characters. That's what the Wolfies tell us, anyway. He's a hard-ass enforcer for the big boys and girls of the Camarilla, utterly ruthless, totally in to doing his job and to keeping the Masquerade whole, so that Vampires stay hidden from the rest of us live types. Over the course of the book, Theo gets caught up in a real tangle of honour and obligation. It forces him to do things that he knows are going to be bad news, such as trying to take down the Slave Ring in the title. It's a really believable modern criminal partnership between vampires and international gangs, and it's cool to see that mortals aren't always the pushover that fangs like to think they are. I don't want to give you any spoilers, but the plot really charges along, and it totally swept me with it. It's a great story.

There's more than that, though. I kinda expected Theo Bell to come out as yet another Blade rip-off, all terse one-liners, big guns and super vampy powers. Instead, the author (Mr. Deodopolus) has actually written a character I could believe in. Sure, Theo's still a hard-ass, but you get to learn a bit about his past, his personality, where he's coming from. His whole life, really. Theo's fallible, too. He doesn't always get it right. In fact, he causes himself a load of problems at times. It's really good to see someone going beyond the usual Brujah thing of angry thugs to show a bit of passion and honour that make the clan who they are.

The other main characters are believable and entertaining, too. The Malkavian is a subtle, sneaky, scary s.o.b. and there was a real fine line between him being mad and him being mysterious, which made him even more frightening. It's cool to see one who isn't just stupid-crazy. The neonate girl is really cool. She's smart and sexy, and although she's pretty powerless compared to Theo, her brain makes up for it. You get a great look at what it actually _feels_ like to become a vamp through her.

Don't worry if you don't like "Vampire: The Masquerade." Though this is a V:tM novel, the World of Darkness doesn't force its way in enough to spoil the read. It's all there and you get a cool feel for the way it all works, but things like clans and game jargon are hardly ever mentioned (I don't think I saw the word 'vitae' once, which makes a cool change,) the powers feel like part of the characters, and the stuff that's happening is almost like it could be any Vampire setting. It's game fiction that puts the fiction first, and it's about time someone did it like that.

"Slave Ring" is a really great read, and I can't wait for the next ones to come out.

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