Review: A book that is difficult to describe
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 2, 2014
Reese Tarrant is a senior LAPD detective who tries to arrest serial killer Richard Lamb, the "Anaheim vampire" who killed thirteen women and drained their blood. The handcuffed Lamb attacks Reese and chews his chest before being shot. Reese, after hospitalization, is fired for unnecessary force and he goes to the coastal Californian town of Santa Marina. Meanwhile, Rusty Webber has been hired by billionaire Ajax Rasmussen, who has made his money by organizing the nation's biggest blood bank, to go to Romania and look for Vlad Tepes' tomb. For some reason, three Romanian police/soldiers kill her guard and try to rape her before she loses consciousness and wakes to find herself in the coffin, with the three assailants beheaded. She is arrested for their murder, taken in front of a firing squad, and after a long conversation she is rescued, and subsequently offered a job as archaeologist in Santa Marina. No, I am not spoiling this book; it has yet to really get started. Whereas this would provide the material for two novels in some hands, we are only a few percent into the book. What happens next is that Reese and Rusty eventually get to suspect Ajax of being a vampire, and of intending to create havoc by introducing the vampire virus into the nation's blood.Which gets to the question, what sort of book is this? It is not really a horror story, because while there is plenty of grisly crime, it is all off-scene, and all we see is the remains. It is not really a mystery, because who is doing what is fairly evident after about ten per cent of the way through. It is not really a police story because Reese's habit of ignoring things like evidence and of trying to make a workable plan before taking action has to make Lestrade look like an inspiration. It is not really an action story, because when Reese tries, his bumbling simply gets him into horrible situations. However, whatever else is missing, events are not. The story evolves at a bewildering pace, and contains the elements of all the different genres listed above. If you don't think about it too much, the story is probably four and a half stars, but for me there were two problems. The first is I think there is too much content, with the result that at the end, there are too many loose ends. Examples are the scenes in the first paragraph above; how could they possibly happen? The second is that I found it difficult to work out why people are doing what, and in particular Ajax. However, if that does not bother you, it is well written generally, and while some other reviewers have complained about editing issues, and yes there is the odd nit to pick, there is nothing in the presentation that spoils your reading flow. This is apparently a first book, and I suspect that when Trolson can get a better hand on structural issues in his stories, he will be well worth reading.