Unholy Awakening
Michael Gregorio
Minotaur, Sep 28 2010, $14.99
ISBN: 9780312625023
In Lotingen, Prussia, the female corpse is pulled from a well near the home of Emma Rimmele. To everyone’s shock and fear, she has suspicious bite marks on her neck. Hanno Stiffeniis leads the investigation with Napoleon's occupying force agents watching his every move.
Hanno learns that three French officers and several locals recently died with similar marks on their necks. The angry superstitious villagers believe Emma is a vampire and a mob mentality is becoming frantic with staking and burning her before she bites them. Stiffeniis and his friend Lavedrine continue their inquiry knowing a tragedy will occur if they do not ferret out the real human serial killer soon.
The latest Hanno Stiffeniis historical investigative thriller (see Days of Atonement and A Visible Darkness) is a great entry as the inquiry is fun to follow especially with Napoleonic agents watching the sleuth’s every step. The leisurely pace enhances the sense of being in early nineteenth century Prussia as Hanno applies deductive and inductive logic in his efforts to solve the homicide while most of the locals fear the outbreak of a vampire feeding frenzy.
Harriet Klausner
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