Vampire books, like vampire films and television series, are undergoing something of a renaissance at the beginning of the twenty first century. They are accompanied by vampire-slayers, witches, mediums, psychics and people with all manner of supernatural powers. Why the upsurge in interest? Well, in addition to the fragmentation of mass media and the increase in desktop publishing and related low-cost publishing techniques, it seems likely that two semi-connected trends are in effect. First, there is the concept of the outsider as the misunderstood but innocent individual, unable to make her powers known to society for fear of persecution but sworn to use her powers for the benefits of all and able to create firm bonds on an individual level when the chance arises. This is clearly related to the kind of adolescent angst that made Kurt Cobain so popular an iconic figure. However, less attractive these days, is the idea of the outsider as a vicious psychopath aiming to do everyone down through abuse of powers. This has arisen alongside fear of terrorism in the USA. Hollywood and related production bases tend to be dominated by more educated people who are, therefore, more tolerant to outsiders who should be understood, tolerated and loved wherever possible. Valerie Hoffman’s novel is, consciously or not, part of these trends and manages to present both aspects simultaneously by having opposed brothers (they are vampires or porphyrians, of course), one of whom is loving and has warm blue eyes and the other is inhumanly cruel and ambitious and seems to suffer from ‘onyx orb’ syndrome. The good guy, Andrew, seeks to thwart the bad guy, Craven, while seeking the love of the female lead, Victory.

This is a book that would have benefited enormously from the attention of a competent editor. Such an editor would have first of all pointed out that calling a candidate for Vice-President of the USA ‘Craven’ is not a good idea. ‘Craven’ is a word meaning ‘cowardly’ and anyone with the misfortune to have parents so stupid or cruel to name them thus would have had it changed prior to any political career. I draw a veil over the name ‘Victory’ for obvious reasons. The editor would then have required a degree of research, first of all into methods of addressing members of the nobility (this is a book which falls into the ‘he had a British accent and he was a duke’ category) and, more importantly, what it is that leading politicians do each day. It beggars belief that the Vice-President of the USA could hang around for days at a time without any meetings, fund-raising activities, media briefings, committee meetings or any of the hundreds of things that leading officials have to do on a daily basis. The author unfortunately has suffered for many years from blindness and so she is exempt from my concluding complaints about the proof reading, but whoever is responsible for permitting the use of “mellow dramatic” should be whipped through the streets for crimes against language.

The above review was contributed by:  John Walsh: CLICK TO VIEW John Walsh's Reviews