This is one for anyone who enjoys a touch of the gothic horrors. Late 19th century on the frontier of India a group of British soldiers are sent to investigate reports of Russian soldiers in the province of Kalikshutra. Teaming up with medic Jack Eliot and Professor Huree a Hindoo academic who specialises in the supernatural the advance party head off for the border. It turns out the Russians have joined up with a cult of Kali worshiping vampires, don't you just hate it when that happens? Naturally the stiff upper lip prevails and the vampires are defeated in a pitched battle of Bernard Cornwell type action and adventure. Just think of Sharpe fighting an army of blood crazed zombies and you are nearly there.
Back in London Eliot is working as a Doctor in Whitechapel when he is approached to find a missing MP who is working on a bill to anex Kalikshutra to the British Empire. Without giving to much away Eliot soon finds himself drawn into a web that involves a supposedly long dead vampire poet who inspired his doctor to write one of the earliest vampire stories in the western tradition, a mysterious ancient vampire from the East, Bram Stoker (author of Dracula) and the Whitechapel ripper.
Holland has very cleverly woven into the plot of this very well written book a set of events that could have served to inspire Stoker to write his best known tale as a sub plot. His descriptions of Victorian London complete with its respectable middle classes and seedy underside of squalid opium dens and prostitution are extremely well rendered. Sadly I thought the role of Jack the Ripper towards the end of the book was all too predictable taking a bit of the shine of an otherwise cracking good read.
If you fancy reading this book I'd suggest that to get the most out of it read Dracula, The Vampyre by John Polidori and Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet first otherwise you will miss much of the detail concealed within and that would be shame.
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29/05/08 @ 14:25