Vampire$ (the title does end with a dollar sign) is about a tightly knit group of professional vampire killers. They may say they"re in it for the money, but their death-defying bravado and warm male friendships are as intense as those in any soldier-hero epic. The irrepressible, foul-mouthed, hard-drinkin" Jack Crow--decked out in high-tech chain mail and wielding a fearsome crossbow--is the leader of the bunch. He"s the sort of man who screams obscenities at the pope, and then (after a lot of booze) weeps in the pontiff"s lap over the horrors he"s witnessed. Author John Steakley is the son of a Chevrolet dealer from Cleburne, Texas, and he uses his roots to good effect. Not only does much of the action take place in the Lone Star state, but when we first meet the major character named Felix, he"s an apparition out of the Old West--living in an abandoned boxcar on the Rio Grande with a Mexican whore, an endless supply of tequila, and a tacky bleeding Jesus on the wall. Vampire$ is one gaudy, action-packed novel. The men are men, the women are vulnerable, and the vampires are mean, ugly monsters. Unless you don"t like that sort of thing, you"ll love it.