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LORD OF THE VAMPIRES

THE DIARIES OF THE FAMILY DRACUL

Last of the Dracula trilogy begun with 1994's Covenant with the Vampire (not reviewed) and Children of the Vampire (1995), and a tasty feast it is. Volumes one and two were prequels to Bram Stoker's Dracula, while the new work carries the action straight into Stoker with an overlapping plotline that cleaves closely to the famous original— and to Francis Ford Coppola's superb film Bram Stoker's Dracula. In the film, Anthony Hopkins played with huge relish the glorious vampire-killer, Dr. Abraham (Bram) Van Helsing, and since Van Helsing is the main character here, the reader finds it hard to divorce grandstanding Hopkins from the author's Van Helsing, especially when Van Helsing's lines richly echo Hopkins's, as when he describes the only way to save Lucy Westenra from rising from the dead: ``We must cut off her head, put a stake through her heart, and fill her mouth with garlic.'' The Lord of the Vampires is an intensely dark figure who first gave Vlad (Dracula) immortality on the condition that he kill the first-born son of each generation of his family. Kalogridis keeps her genealogical spaghetti-tangle fairly clear. Van Helsing, the mortal son of Arkady, a vampire whom Van Helsing killed but failed to behead, must save his own son, wealthy Dr. John Seward, who owns and manages the famous madhouse where insect-eating Renfield is kept behind bars. Vlad must kill Seward. Kalogridis's story quickly dissolves into Stoker's, and familiar scenes pass by, viewed from a fresh angle. The new storyline involves the radiantly beautiful Elisabeth Bathory, who has thrived for many centuries by murdering virgins (600 and counting) and bathing in their blood. She is in search of a magic parchment that will help her kill the hopelessly medieval Vlad himself and bring vampirism up to speed in the 19th century. Kinky sex, a sly, literate narrative and liplicking action, even if largely reheated. Fun.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-385-31414-0

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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