Slave of My Thirst
These days, what can a writer do to make his vampire novel stand out from the pack? In Lord of the Dead (LJ 1/96), Holland made Lord Byron one, and he brings his vampire Byron back in this new novel, narrated in part by Bram Stoker. Like Stoker's masterpiece, this book is arranged as a series of letters, journal, and diary entries. Stoker here plays Doctor Watson to a Doctor John Eliot's Sherlock Holmes. The book's opening section, though, comes right out of the movie Gunga Din, complete with a deadly battle atop a tower against the forces of Kali. But in this novel, those forces are not thugs but zombies, and Kali is not just a statue but a supernatural power who summons Jack the Ripper into the book. Holland mixes all of these associations together and serves up an entertaining concoction all his own. Literary junk food, perhaps, but you won't stop after just one bite. Highly recommended.?Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.