Murder, Vampires, and Leprechauns - Alan Zacher

Murder, Vampires and Leprechauns is a novel of three short stories of suspense, action and murder-and, yes, all of them have much humor. In Burgermen, Tom Mayors-a fifty-six-year-old man who still lives at home and hates work of any kind-unbeknownst to his mother quits yet another job, a clerk in a grocery-store. The manager is so angry with him for quitting without giving notice that he threatens to kill him and begins stalking him by phone every night. In the second story, Damn Leprechauns, Tom-because of his mother's constant pestering-has joined the detective agency of cranky, retired, Homicide Detective James Hurts. They take a case of helping a young man and woman in trouble, only to find out that this young couple is in trouble because they have stolen the pot of gold from some leprechauns. Because of Tom and Jim's own greed and wanting to keep the gold, the leprechauns kidnap Tom's mother, Lill. Tom and Jim must come up with a sharp plan to rescue Tom's mother. In the third story, Hurts' Christmas Present, Tom has quit the agency and Hurts is on his own. It's a few days before Christmas, and Hurts takes the case of very precocious, stubborn eleven-year-old girl, Amanda, whose Mother has been arrested for stealing $20,000.00 from her place of employment. During the investigation, Hurts discovers that the mother was framed by three of the six board-members of the company. All the board-members are vampires. Hurts must do battle with the three board-members to free Amanda's mother from jail.