The Midnight Guardian
Sarah Jane Stratford
St. Martin’s, Oct 2009, $24.99
ISBN: 9780312560133
By 1940 Hitler had succeeded in killing all the vampires on the continent. He created a special hunter unit, the Nachtspeere whose mission was the vampiric genocide. However, Millennials, millennium old vampires are not easy to kill as they double in strength and other powers in their thousandth year. Only a few special hunters can kill a Millennial because each vampire has a demon inside who feeds on their hunger and gives them the skill to strike back at their enemies.
With the Millennials dead on the mainland, the British Millennial vampires send a group to Germany to prevent a human war as memories of the destruction of WWI lingers when their food supply killed one another that led to a vampire civil war. Brigit and the others plan to kill key SS men in order to prevent Hitler from occupying France. In Germany the unit is stunned by Hitler’s Final Solution and hope to create enough chaos to slow down Hitler’s master plan as he and his leadership teams prove they are greater monsters than vampires with what they are doing to the Jews. Brigit leaves Germany with two orphaned Jewish kids as the Nazi vampire hunters stalk her on a train ad boat on her way home to England.
Told from Brigit’s perspective, readers learn through flashbacks how she was turned, how she became freed of her sire, and how she met her eternal love Eammon who waits for her back home. Their love sustains her as she rides the trains towards the Channel with the real evil in pursuit of her and her precious cargo. THE MIDNIGHT GUARDIAN is an intriguing take on what is evil as Sarah Jane Stratford makes the case that deeds not species defines malevolency.
Harriet Klausner
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