An uneasy peace between vampires and humans is on the verge of shattering thanks to a recent streak of vampire deaths. Two, newly partnered cops find themselves working together to try to solve the case before a second Hellish war can tear apart their two races. Duvall, or Vall as he is called, finds himself facing issues that have their roots in his own past, things that he has been dealing with for nearly three hundred years. He also has to put up with his human partner's prejuidice, but this is nothing new. As past and present collide, the future of the world hangs in the balance.

Tightly woven police action blends smoothly with the paranormal elements of this story. Particularly interesting is the subtle allegorical angle as issues that are a part of reality are re-imagined and played out in an otherworldly manner. Half Past Hell is like Forever Knight, but without the angst that bogged that show down too often. Ms. Roycroft has another winning tale here.

Synopsis
War is hell, even when you're already dead.

It's been twenty years since the vampire-mortal war nicknamed Hell ended, but underneath the gloss of political correctness and affirmative action, old hatreds die hard, especially in the heart of Chi-No, Wisconsin. It is here that many of Chicago's young vampires, burned out during the war, have resettled. The sucklings—'squids' to most humans—live in Chi-No's old inner-city neighborhoods, trying to abide by the covenants of their new world, but many are mysteriously dying the true death. Chi-No Police detectives Kilpatrick and Duvall have been assigned to the latest case.

Human John Kilpatrick is not happy at being transferred from day shift to the "graveyard shift", and he resents being partnered with a squid. He believes everyone should have their place—women should be at home, and the dead should be…dead. Master vampire Wulf Duvall isn't thrilled to be working with an ignorant meatball like Kilpatrick, but he's excited to be doing something more important than checking taverns for illegal blood whores.

Battling each other is hard enough, but the investigation goes from bad to worse when a mortal with the special vampire-killing bullets called "Claws" makes an assassination attempt on Duvall. He suspects the Brothers of the Sun, the zealot vampire hunters who started Hell years ago, and while it seems obvious to Duvall that war is brewing again, the police department seems interested only in covering up the truth to prevent panic in the city. To make matters worse, the vampire doyens of both Chi-No and Chicago seem too wrapped up in their own pleasures to care about sucklings dying in Little Transylvania.

Duvall, scarred by 300 years of betrayal, and Kilpatrick, whose black and white world has been turned upside down, race against time to discover the true power behind the conspiracy to destroy the peace that no one seems to want.

What time is it? Half Past Hell, midway between life and the grave, peace and wartime to kill or die.

Book 1 in the Hell series, Half Past Hell is a non-stop roller-coaster of action, mystery and horror that takes the reader from the massacre at Fort William Henry to the Fort Dearborn massacre, from the Great Chicago Fire to the Chicago of tomorrow.