The Fangs of Freelance, the fourth book in the Fred the Vampire Accountant series, deals with the repercussions of what happened in previous books. It continues to focus on the value of friendship and kindness, but delves a bit deeper into the feelings of the characters and the changes in their lives. Fred is maturing as a person, which makes the book that much more enjoyable to read.

The best books, of course, show the characters changing, and a good series continues that. In earlier books, Fred was mostly focused on learning about the world of vampires, magic users, and other parahumans. A lot of his changes were forced on him, and while he tried to do the best that he could, it was clear that he was often doing things that he didn't want to do. I think that this book, more than the others, has Fred choosing rather than getting dragged into things, and I really appreciated that. The other characters, who might have been featured less in this book, were also shown with a bit more depth. I really enjoyed learning about them.

One commonality among found family books, like this one, is that each installment involves adding another person to the family. However, I don't think a single new person was added in this book. We know that a new person will be coming, and statuses have changed, but there were no new family members, which gave the author the time to dig more into the existing characters. This break from the formula was refreshing.

Previously, the books had focused mainly on Colorado, but the episodes in this book were almost all outside the area where Fred lives. Again, it was a nice deepening of the setting, giving us a chance to learn more about elements of the world that we hadn't seen before.

As an aside, there is a part in an abandoned amusement park when Fred is looking at how badly everything is set up, and the humor there was so well done. Good job, Drew Hayes!

So, who would like these books? These books are about empathy and kindness. They move quickly but aren't focused on physical heroics. Any reader should keep that in mind. As usual, you should start with the first book in the series. The books aren't long, and the early ones are cute and silly. Previously, I had wondered if I would want to listen to the series again once I got to the end. However, with this increased focus on developing the characters, I think I would probably enjoy it.

So far, these books have made good bed time listening, as they aren't very stressful or high stakes. That might change with the increase in Fred's standing in the parahuman community in later books, but so far, they are excellent for winding down.

Obviously, I will be reading the next book in this series and am really looking forward to it.