more like 3.5, but i rounded down this time - I enjoyed it, but it was all over and had a lot going on, a little too much crammed in maybe, but enjoyable as a fun, easy read. ( )

This is my third book by Masello and I have now become a fan. While I still think "Einstein's Prophecy" is the best of the ones I've read, this one is an extremely close second. As a historian and a history teacher I appreciate Masellos' impeccable historical research and how seamlessly he blends fictional characters and events into a flow with the historical ones. His plots are always well thought and well developed and executed in such a way that it is sometimes difficult to see where the fiction ends and the history begins. But it is his characters that truly define his work, in my opinion. His characters are captivating and always fully fleshed out and again the fictional ones engage the historical without any gaps. And even the historical figures, while accurately being reproduced, are rounded out in ways that one could just imagine that that was their actual personality. In this story Bram Stoker, author of "Dracula" pursues some real life evil that steals life from others. With Mina Harcourt, the two strive to bring an end to the evil ways of Bartholomew and Winifred Thorne. Believing they have succeeded they discover rather that the Thornes have eluded them and now have a precious Egyptian artifact that was stolen from Mina that has further enhanced their power. Discovering, years later, that the Thornes are still alive, Mina and Stoker pledge to pursue them - either to their deaths or the Thones'. This one is a page turner and will keep the reader enthralled to the very end. ( )

In trying to figure out whose story this is I ultimately decided it didn’t matter because it is fascinating with richly drawn characters and creative twists, turns parallels and perpendiculars. It is historical, it is supernatural, it is mystical, it is a little out there.

The story opens in 1895 with a group of three men and one woman trekking up a Carpathian peak searching for the Bucegi Sphinx. The leader of the photographic expedition is Minerva Harcourt. Her crew is of a questionable nature. But the expedition finds more than the sphinx. Taking refuge from a storm in a cave a skeleton is found clutching a small gold box. And you can be sure the little gold box is going to be stolen, passed off and changed hands many times.

Bram Stoker, graduate of Trinity College, manager of the Lyceum Theater, general factotum for the great actor, Henry Irving, and member of the illustrious Beefsteak Club, and future author of Dracula, is walking home when he happens upon a young woman, Lucinda Watts, who has thrown herself into the Thames. We find out that she is a match girl at the mission house.

Bartholomew Thorne and his sister Winifred known as The Matron of the mission house represent all things evil.

Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Gilbert and Sullivan, the unsinkable Molly Brown all make appearances.

Sound a bit disjointed? Maybe but it all gets pulled together if a little fantastically. I enjoyed this book and I thank NetGalley and 47North for a copy. ( )