Line #2 Literature/LeeNez


1	[[quoteright:309:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Second_Sunrise_cover_7618.jpg]]
2	The ''Lee Nez'' series is a VampireDetectiveSeries by David and Aimée Thurlo, starring a Navajo vampire who works as a New Mexico state trooper.
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4	The series has four books:
5	* ''Second Sunrise'': As if Lee's problems with a pack of [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent skinwalkers]] aren't enough, he suspects the vampire who turned him during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII is back, and he has the FBI, in the form of [[ActionGirl Special Agent Diane Lopez]], breathing down his neck because of the missing plutonium said vamp is after.
6	* ''Blood Retribution'': Lee and Diane investigate a gang of gem smugglers who killed a cop. They're yet more skinwalkers. To further complicate matters Lee is being stalked by a pair of vampire assassins enraged at him for killing their leader.
7	* ''Pale Death'': Diane investigates a string of gruesome homicides in and around the town of Shiprock. They're unmistakably the work of a vampire, but she knows for a fact that Lee prefers his blood chilled in a refrigerator. They get around the question of keeping the secret by calling it a SerialKiller who ''thinks'' he's a vampire.
8	* ''Surrogate Evil'': All-around-scumbag Newton Glover is suspected by the Albuquerque police department of kidnapping a teenage boy for a child pornography ring. Determined to nail him to the wall for good this time, they enlist the FBI, and Diane calls in Lee. They go undercover in Glover's trailer park and the case gets complicated when they learn that his neighbors once took the law into their own hands and beat him to death, only to have him come BackFromTheDead.
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10	!!The ''Lee Nez'' novels provide examples of the following tropes:
11	* ActionGirl: Diane. She's an FBI Special Agent so it's kind of a job requirement.
12	* AvengingTheVillain: The motive of the vamps targeting Lee in ''Blood Retribution'', since he killed their leader, and his creator, in the previous book.
13	* DaywalkingVampire: Downplayed. Lee can handle the light as long as he wears UV protection (sunblock and sunglasses) but it's not a death sentence if those are compromised. Averted for every other vamp.
14	* EscapedFromTheLab: In ''Pale Death'' Lee and Diane discover that [[spoiler:the vampire they're hunting was living peacefully as a human, but was captured by a GovernmentConspiracy and experimented on. He broke out of the lab and went berserk.]]
15	* IHateYouVampireDad: But not for the usual reasons. The vampire who turned him during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII was [[{{Ghostapo}} a Nazi operative]], and Lee's a good cop.
16	* MayflyDecemberRomance: Lee and Diane. Lee also married once and outlived his wife.
17	* OfficialCouple: Lee and Diane start dating in book two.
18	* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Lee calls himself a nightwalker rather than a vampire, since a Navajo medicine man was able to partially cure him after he was turned. He's not as tough as a full vampire, but he's also not so fatally weak to sunlight. More generally:
19	** TheAgeless: Normal vampires. Lee is LongLived instead, and has aged the equivalent of about five years since UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
20	** VegetarianVampire: Justified. Vampires don't require human blood specifically (Lee gets cow blood from a slaughterhouse) and can eat regular food. Lee compares blood to a protein shake.
21	** WeakenedByTheLight: In this series vampires spontaneously combust in sunlight due to a fatal weakness to UV radiation. They can get around it by heavy use of sunscreen.
22	* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Skinwalkers can shapeshift at will and are considered anathema by the Navajo. Lee protects his tribe by hunting them.
23	* SinisterSouthwest: The series is about dealing with monsters in New Mexico.
24	* UndeadTaxExemption: Averted. At one point Lee considers that he's lasted this long because a lot of the electronic and paper trails didn't exist when he was turned. He just considers himself lucky nobody's noticed that there's been a Lee Nez in the New Mexico state police since the middle of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
25	* UndercoverAsLovers: Lee and Diane in ''Surrogate Evil'' as part of the operation to catch Newton Glover. It helps that by this point they actually ''are'' lovers.
26	* VampireDetectiveSeries: Lee is normally a state trooper but also does a lot of undercover work. The series uses some of the genre's typical elements straight and plays with the others.

Context Literature / LeeNez