Review: `Most of history is a crime....'
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 9, 2014
Bay Area Northern California author C.R. Trolson has been writing for a number of years. He grew up on Santa Barbara, CA and in Odessa, TX. According to his notes, `I spent a good deal of time researching aspects of this book such as forensic procedure, both police and archeological, the quacks, scientists, and entrepreneurs that make up the blood business, mission life in Old California, as well as the customs and myths of the Caneleno Indians and the Franciscans.' All of this background most assuredly contributed to this first novel, A Passing Curse, which takes place in an old Spanish Mission town much like Santa Barbara, the curse of the title being the vampire that arrived with the first Spanish colonists, a refugee of the Inquisition. Trolson's passion for history as well as his pleasure of constructing the perfect sentence/paragraph/page/chapter have lead him to create a multifaceted story with elements that will appeal (if not as a whole) to a wide audience.Though the novel involves the vampire genre it weaves a story that includes a strong female lead character, tough enough to stand toe to toe with a jaded, LA police veteran. Both characters encounter the unexpected in a man out of time whose beginnings hint at the supernatural.  The author has generously provided a synopsis of the story: `When homicide detective Reese Tarrant corners Richard Lamb, aka the Anaheim Vampire, a prolific serial killer who drains his victims' blood, and realizes he has no proof other than gut instinct and his own heart, he kills him and covers it up. Tarrant is fired from the Los Angeles Police Department but finds enough evidence to keep himself from going to prison, barely. Some of this evidence leads him up the coast to the small mission town of Santa Marina and billionaire philanthropist, art collector and whole blood fractionator Ajax Rasmussen who owns a palace overlooking the Pacific. Archeologist Penelope "Rusty" Webber has been hired by Ajax to investigate Indian skeletons found on land he owns behind the Santa Marina Mission. Even though it pays well, it is a job she views with ambivalence: the last time she worked for Ajax, a supposedly scholarly investigation into the whereabouts of Dracula's tomb, she was nearly raped and executed by Romanian rebels. Rusty doesn't trust Ajax, but he has the money to resurrect a career stalled by charges she killed a fellow archeologist.'Making a story about gore, serial killings, copious amounts of sanguine details, plucky legal maneuverings, scholarly interest in Romanian folklore, and human passions plucked to the extreme is a task daunting for any author. But Trolson's attention to minute detail keeps his story fast paced, and despite some lapses into incredulity (do recall that this is a vampire tale...), he manages to keep the reader's attention riveted. If stories of this ilk appeal, this book will satisfy. Grady Harp, March 14