Monster Hunter Vendetta by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter Vendetta is the sequel to Monster Hunter International, and once again stars our friend, Owen Z. Pitt, in a swashbuckling adventure. Owen and the rest of his MHI team are in Mexico on spring break, but it's not for Girls Gone Wild fun; they're taking care of a chupacabra infestation. When they finish the job and return to the hotel, though, a massive invasion of zombies interrupts their rest, and Owen finds himself knocked out, then arrested by a zealous Mexican police after he kills a policeman who has risen as a zombie.

Owen is rescued from the police, finally, by agents from the Monster Control Bureau, who don't particularly like him very well, but are forced by circumstances into keeping him alive. There's a necromancer in the woodpile, and he's the one responsible for creating the zombie infestation, and has other nefarious designs to open a portal to allow the Old Ones (nasty critters out of Lovecraftian mythology) into our world, to darken and dominate it. Owen has once again ended up as the Chosen One who can stop the plot and keep Earth from being occupied.

Later on, Ray and Susan Shackleford (Owen's vampire in-laws) show up to propose an alliance and issue a warning about the strange mark that their daughter, Julie, wears on her neck. Owen is not swayed by their arguments, though they grab him and somehow infuse him with a shard of the potent artifact from the previous adventure, which seems to give him the power, now, to read people's memories, if they are pertinent to the current challenge - handy, that.

A great passage:

Agent Herzog says, "We kneecap enough of these assholes and cut off enough thumbs, somebody will talk. They always do."

"...who were you with before being recruited by the Monster Control Bureau?"

"Internal Revenue Service."

That there's just some funny stuff, I don't care who you are.

Correia introduces us to a house full of gnome gangbangers, who'd really rather bust a cap on Owen than help him, but they owe Earl Harbinger a favor or two. We finally get the scoop on Agent Franks, and how he's able to kick Owen's tail every time they have a confrontation. The bad guys decide it would be a good idea...NOT... to threaten Owen's family, so we finally get to meet his famous brother, Mosh, and his parents. Rather an odd way to introduce his fiancee, Julie, but it works.

Lots of great revelations about Monster Hunter history, plenty of gore and grue, and it actually manages to hold up to the standard set in the first book. The third book is being released next week, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to get it downloaded as soon as possible.