Tomes of Shadowstalking

Welcome to the land of shadows, where evil is the greatest power, where nightfall marks the birth of terror, where your very soul is at risk. Join me as I investigate worlds filled with black magic and dark souls and encounter the monsters rule these wicked places.

This review does not represent the opinions of the general public. It reflects my personal thoughts and opinions on the book.

That said, on to the review!

E-Branch shut down Malinari the Mind's operation in Australia, but no sooner have they returned to England when disturbing news reaches them from Greece, where a woman's body pulled from the Aegean Sea has roused the suspicions of an old E-Branch ally, Manolis Papastamos, because of what an autopsy reveals. Has the old Greek policeman uncovered the lair of another vampire, maybe Vavara or Lord Szwart? Or is there yet another vampire operating in the Mediterranean, maybe one who's been there all along? But while E-Branch is scrambling its resources into Greece, their greatest asset--and greatest frustration--has an agenda of his own. Jake Cutter, though key in their success in Australia, hasn't yet given up the vendetta he was pursuing when he crossed paths with E-Branch. He's narrowing in on his target, the crime lord who tortured and killed the woman Jake loved. But there are secrets and there are secrets, and the secret this criminal mastermind possesses may be the death of the newest Necroscope. Will Jake get his act together in time to stop a new plague of vampires from taking root?

Finally out in paperback, I started Necroscope: Defilers on an overnight flight to the East Coast, and--after managing to catch up on lost sleep--I couldn't put the book down. I absolutely had to know what was going to happen next! But that's a sign of a great book whose author has mastered the art of manipulating the reader's responses and firmly trapping the reader's attention.

Be warned: this book talks about certain traits of the Starside vampires that have been gone over in the previous books, so if you haven't read the books recently, you may not understand what the Wamphyri are talking about. But if you allow for that, you'll find that the novel flows smoothly from one scene to the next...always excepting how jarring it is to go with the Necroscope from one place to the next without warning. One of the chief attractions of the book, however, is the continuing efforts of the Necroscope to be all he can be when the dead won't talk to him. Of course, it doesn't help that his own obsessive vendetta keeps distracting him from the tasks at hand, but don't you think it would be easier for them all if they would just talk to him already?

Oh, there's so much I want to say about this book and its contents that I can't, because that would be giving away too much. Let's just say, for now, that Necroscope: Defilers ties up a couple of major loose ends from the time of the original Necroscope. "Loose ends?" you ask. "There were loose ends?" Think about it, okay?

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