Summary:
A cold wind blows through the alleys and back streets as a homeless man seeks shelter from the rain. Unknown to the man a monster stalks the streets looking for its next meal. The being is named Richard Carnitch and he is not quite a man. He prefers the darkness and the effects of the misery he spreads to those who are unfortunate enough to cross his path.
Tonight will end the same for his victim, but it will end differently for Carnitch. His victims are usually those that have fallen off of society’s radar and no one misses them. This time though Carnitch has picked a man that had one thread left connected to the normal world. That thread is a man named Simon and he was helping the homeless man. That night Carnitch makes his move and Simon catch’s him in the act. Terrified by what he had seen Simon runs away but he feels obligated to report what he saw in the hopes that the authorities might do something.
When that fails Simon turns to the homeless community to try and find out if his friend might have survived some how. Simon won’t give up until he has an answer and now Carnitch’s food supply is drying up as the word spreads that a killer is hunting on the streets. He has to do something, something that he hasn’t had to do for years: fight the humans that dare challenge the master of the night.
This the tale of a ragtag group of people that band together to fight a creature that has inspired legends around the world and no one believes exists. Using knowledge from old fairy tales and plain old stubbornness they go toe to toe with a being of almost unimaginable power. Who will survive?
My Thoughts:
This was a little bit of a different take on the what a vampire may actually be and what inspired all the legends surrounding them. The story itself moves at a pretty good clip and is interesting. Most of the characters are not one note and none of them are perfect. So it actually had an impact on the story when one of them didn’t make it. This book was written in the 90’s so some of the story has commentary on issues of the time that may or may not have aged well depending on your view, but it’s not like the issues brought up are much different than what goes on now just switch a few terms around. All around I recommend this book to anyone who likes vampire stories with different takes on them or anyone that is looking for an interesting adventure thriller book. m.a.c ( )