The Vampire's Valet
Ratings1
Average rating5
15
Ratings1
Average rating5
Death stalks the fog-shrouded streets of London. A mysterious killer is hunting down vampire familiars, driving stakes through their hearts, and cutting off their heads for good measure. Nestled in his padded, bug-infested cell at Seward’s Sanatorium for the Criminally Insane, R.M. Renfield, familiar prime to Count Dracula, imagines he is safe from the scourge… Until he awakens standing over the body of his cell mate with the murder weapon in hand.
Accused of the crime and unable to prove his innocence, he escapes the asylum and resumes the life he knew before Dracula. Before madness. The life of Inspector Renfield of Scotland Yard. Venturing into the seedy underbelly of the city, he hunts for the murderer amid a myriad of suspects. Is it the beautiful folklorist researching the legend of vampires? Her brutish and enigmatic chauffeur and bodyguard? A reporter obsessed with Dracula’s reign of terror seven years earlier? Or the cult of vampire hunters who revere the inexplicably missing Abraham Van Helsing?
As the body count of familiars serving London’s vampires continues to climb, Renfield, with the reluctant assistance of his brutal master Dracula and the villainous intellect of Mr. Hyde, must put aside the safety net of madness and reclaim his former glory as a brilliant detective to track down the killer before more innocent souls are lost.
International bestselling author J. Kent Holloway spins a web of mystery that’s one part The Hound of the Baskervilles, one part Dracula, and a whole lot of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, which will propel you on a spine-tingling journey into a world you only think you know.
Reviews with the most likes.
Stoker Meets Doyle With A Touch Of The MCU Approach. If you love the non-sparkly, dark, horrific, brooding, *evil* vampire lore... you're gonna love this book. If you love the Sherlock Holmes type detective tale, perhaps with a more solo "beat people until they give you answers" Batman/ Jack Reacher type bent... you're gonna love this book. If you like MCU style storytelling with a shared universe with lots of different well known characters... you're gonna love this book.
Here, Holloway clearly shows that he too is a massive fan of all of the above, and he uses his skills as a writer to manage to combine elements of each into a cohesive tale that works both on its own and works to set up a "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" type saga. At just under 300 pages, this isn't the shortest book out there, but it provides just enough... *ahem* red meat *ahem*... to tell its tale well without overstaying its welcome (a danger, with these types of characters, just sayin) and while effectively both satisfying the reader of this tale and leaving them wanting a subsequent tale in this shared universe.
Meaning the book did its job on all fronts, and did them all well.
Now I just need y'all to fall in love with this book and start preaching its wonders so we can see how far Holloway can take it. ;)
Very much recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.
