Private Investigator Dirk Slade is looking for the killer of his best friend, as well as a missing teenager who just happens to be the son of Dracula. Along the way he encounters the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s monster (plus his former bride), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Leech Woman, the Invisible Man, Wasp Woman, and a host of other old horror movie characters. That’s because Bruce Golden’s Monster Town is set in an early sixties ghetto of Hollywood, where—now that they’re no longer in vogue—the monsters of black and white horror films have taken up residence. In this existence, monsters played themselves in the movies. THEY were the actors. Now most of them are just regular folk, with regular jobs. Slade’s investigation leads not only to a number of murders, but a political cover-up and threat to the well-being of every citizen of Monster Town. This satire on old film noir and hard-boiled detective stories plays its mysterious plot straight, despite the bountiful list of quirky characters and its sardonic narration. Golden’s Monster Town is unlike any book you’ve ever heard of, never mind visited.