Erik Tavares

My Lord! This had to be the scariest book I've read in decades. Mr. Tavares has a knack for putting things together that you would never have thought of, and making them the most ghoulish, the most ghastly, the most bloodly, the most horrible things you've ever read about. It makes my skin crawl to just think about it.

THE SETTING: The setting is in Victorian times in New Orleans, France and Borneo of all places. Can you hear those jungle drums beating? The headhunters slipping through the trees - after your head? I sure can.

THE PLOT: Mssr. Reynard LeCroix is visited by a butler named Turkebot, who wished to speak to him about his employer who is in Borneo. His emplyer - a Mssr. Wilhelm Carlovec, whose daughter Kiria is in New Orleans, wants to meet to discuss a cure for their mutual disease. Reynard blows him off. When Reynard enters his office, who should he meet there but Arte Savoy - an old friend, who is on to a murder plot that follows a direct course from town to town, just like a railway course. He shows it to Reynard, who knows after reading it that Savoy suspects that a werewolf or a vampire is operating in the U.S.A on a train bound for New Orleans. It may be coming to find Reynard. Savoy wants his help. Savoy, after all is an expert in everything ancient, that lives and breathes out of folklore and legend that is dangerous and unclean to God. Why Renard? You will have to read the book to find out. Reynard goes out for a walk to clear his head, and finds himself called to a hansom cab by Ms. Carlovec, He is curious what she wants and she is beautiful, so he gets in. She tells him that her Father is sick, and Reynard may be the only way to find a cure to her Father's disease. Can he help? "I'm not inexpensive, lady" he says, "Can you afford me?" "Yes," she says, "We have many financial resources at our disposal. It should be no problem." she answered. He gets out of the hansom cab, and tells her to that the cure she seeks, is a silver bullet that lies next to his heart, that may kill him any day now. So, good day!" and exits the hansom. He gets his bearings, only to find that he is way out of the way by Metarie Cemetery where the crypts are all above the ground. Before he can decide which way to go, some native looking men with black dot tattoos, hurt him and knock him out cold. Luckily, Savoy is close behind with a Cavalry man named Grant. They track Reynard and his party through the cemetary, only to lose them once or twice. When they finally find Reynard and party, they are in a crypt. Reynard is tied up with ropes - ankles to wrists. He is facing Mr. Turkebot, the valet, who is explaining why he is using this type of persuasion to convince Reynard to cooperate fully with Mr. Carlovec. He produced Lasha St. Croix, Reynard's sister. She doesn't know what Reynard is, and Reynard wants to keep it that way. But the beast wants to come out to play, so Reyanrd transforms into a giant beast, and kills and all the natives but one, but doesn't hurt Lasha. Mr. Turkebot is taken down by Mr. Grant and his rifle plus some holy water from Savoy. He was some weird type of vampire they only have in Borneo. Only one native survived who grabbed Lasha and ranaway leaving the others alone. Thus the chase had begun: Savoy, Reynard and Grant go to retrieve Lasha from these bad people. There were many shoot outs, chasing from port to port, massacre on a boat, set-up in a bell tower, bones come to life, a mother vampire's love can kill, farming the natives for blood and heads, empty villages, a burned out church with the dead monk's inside, paddling down the river, finding hidden tunnels, boilers and dynamite, oubilettes, and God will guide you, improptu crosses, insane final battles, Kiria gets a hug from Mom, Lasha as sacrifice?, an intense final battle, Carlovec manner explodes Boom!, stock up and get lost, starting over again with a heavy heart and permanent damage... The plot is one in a million. It is well thought out. When you think you know what is right around the corner is when you find that things have taken a complete twist back around to something completely different. It is amazingly stunning how Tavares did this, when you think he dodges left he goes right and vice versa. The man is a genius in plot, twisting in all the right places, I give this one an A .

THE CHARACTERIZATION: With a full troop of main charaters to contend with, Tavares has his work cut out for him, but he rises to the occasion in grand style, making his characters strong and determined and willing even though they have been damaged in the past by loss of family or faith in themselves. One is even wanted for murder in a few states and is running from prosecution. They all are fully fleshed out and human, three dimensional and technicolor, right up to the tiny features which drive them to do strange things. These quirks and foibles play into the plot of the story and make it much richer. You have Reynard St.Croix, Arte Savoy, Mahonri Grant, on the American side and on the other side you have the Carlovec's - The Father, Wilhelm, the Mother, Lucinda, the Daughter Kiria, the Helpers, Claudette and Jeane. They are all major players in this novel. Even some of the secondary players get VIP characterization such as a native woman in Borneo - Lingood and Arte's scholarly friend Ernst Stronhiem. Their characterization was just as good as the main players, leaving the novel a rich and rewarding experience to read. A true hallmark of a great writer, characterizing all his characters. Excellent job Mr. Tavares, you get A on this one.

THE PACING: The pacing is so good in the book that you feel that you're in the Victorian period right along with the characters. The setting is illuminated at page one, and the Victorian age doesn't slow down the pace of the novel at all - it just keeps going, keeps moving, keeps the chase alive until finally you have this insane final battle that leaves you gasping for air while you remind yourself to breathe, after all it is just only a novel you keep telling yourself. The pacing in this book is swift to say the least, I read it one day, or a part of one day at the very least. You're truly hooked, immersed, and not released until it's over and after it's over you put down the book and realize that you've experienced something really special. Something that rarely happens. Something that is almost unique. You were scared to death at the end. Which brings us to our next topic. As for pacing, I give this novel an A .

THE ENDING: My Lord! What an ending it was. I don't think I have truly read an ending like this before. It comes at you in waves. Just when you think one side has won, the other side comes back with an attack that is far worse than anything you could imagine - especially the bad guys, the stuff that they could come up with is immeasurably horrifing. It just escalated and escalated, until you thought you couldn't take it any more then finally there's a resolution, so that your senses can rest. It comes right before you hit overload. Right before the blood and gore, the animated dead bodies, the new kind of vampire from legend ( different legend then Romanian) takes over people, then there's the werewolf experiments, the child sacrifices, the thousands of headhunters on the front lawn, waiting for head vampire to free them. My God, it becomes too much evil at one single time and place that you are overwhelmed. It all comes alive at once and tries to suck our heroes down. WOW! Talk about a bad day. This ending is stupendous, outrageous, violent, fantastic, bloody, unbelievable, and insane all at once. I LOVED IT! It could not have been better in a horror novel if you tried. Mr. Tavares, you are a genius with your ending, it scared the crap out of me. This one gets an A just for that.

THE UPSHOT: As this novel is both well written and credible and the author does an amazing job of bringing the Victorian period back to life in not one, but three countries, I would say that when you add this to his plot, characterization, pacing and ending, you wind up with a book that deserves ten stars not five. The problem is, five stars is all I have to give. So five it is. It really doesn't show how GREAT this novel is. I would recommend it to anyone who can read English in the known world. Everyone needs a little scare now and them. With the writing as good as it is, even the literati should be scared once and a while. It would be good for them. It is far scarier than all the classics, like Dracula and Frankenstein, Nosferatu, and the Dr. Caligari's Cabinet rolled into one. You'll have to give it a try. Hell, just buy the damned book. It is so good you'll be thanking me when you're done. It is so amazing that you will be panting and out of breath when you are done. Hey! You! Zombie fans! At the end of the novel, there are hundreds of years worth of zombies that reanimate all together to fight out heroes. It a Zombie-thon all in one place, and they bite - hard. Read the book and you see how hundreds of years of zombies behave and attack when ordered to by the head vampire through magic. It's insane! What a kick in the pants this book is....… (lisätietoja)