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THE PRESIDENT'S VAMPIRE
by Christopher Farnsworth
Hodder & Stoughton Paperbacks, August 2012
352 pages
7.99 GBP
ISBN: 0340998180


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The White House has a secret and only a handful of people know it. It's no coincidence that since the death of Abraham Lincoln, every successful attack on a US president has taken place in daylight. The reason for this is the existence of Nathaniel Cade, a vampire held in thrall by a blood oath for 140 years to protect the president.

In the second book in the series, Cade and his human handler, Zach Burrows, have to go up against the victims of a highly contagious disease that turns human beings into vicious 'snakemen', more than a match for any human being. Cade and Zach have to find the source of the infection and who is responsible for visiting this particular evil on an unsuspecting world.

As background premises go, the existence of such snakemen is probably no harder to take than the existence of vampires, so I suspect that can be used to provide a get out of jail free card in the believability game, and in that respect, the book doesn't come off too badly. The main reason for this is that Nathaniel Cade is a strong enough character to overcome that sort of obstacle. That much was established in the first book in what has now clearly become a series. In BLOOD OATH, Cade was often in danger of overshadowing his almost constant companion, Zach, but in THE PRESIDENT'S VAMPIRE, we see a much toughened version of Zach, a man who has become formidable in his own right, although this side of him only occasionally comes to the forefront. The relationship between the dead-pan Cade and the increasingly interesting Zach is one of the mainstays of the book, and is in many ways the things that lifts this above the usual run of the mill vampire fantasy.

The fact that I persevered with THE PRESIDENT'S VAMPIRE despite my dislike of reading books with such a small print size says a lot for this particular combination of conspiracy thriller and urban fantasy. In Nathaniel Cade, Farnsworth has created an enduringly fascinating character. I just hope he can keep producing plots that don't strain credibility to breaking point, as this was in danger of doing.

§ Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.

Reviewed by Linda Wilson, October 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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