Friday, June 6, 2008

The Last Vampire-Patricia Rosemoor & Marc Paoletti

The Last Vampire
Patricia Rosemoor & Marc Paoletti
Del Rey, Jul 2008, $7.99
ISBN: 9780345501042

They found the five century old mummy buried deep in a Texas cave and they learned that the mummy’s ancient flesh somehow bestowed super powers on humans. When the former was discovered, the Feds did not care; when the latter occurred the military took over and turned the mummy into a top secret weapon.

However the egotistical generals and their even more pompous know it all civilian leaders ignore the science as the facts get in the way. They do not comprehend that the mummy is dormant, but alive; held in stasis by an insane priest’s incantations. They soon learn it’s alive when a voodoo priestess purposely and Leah Maguire accidentally awakened it.

In New Mexico Special Ops Captain super soldier (from the mummy’s touch) Scott Boulder and Team Ultra are assigned to stop the amoral last vampire; as now everyone knows the mummy is a blood sucking shark. Leah joins his team.

THE LAST VAMPIRE is a dark somewhat gory supernatural thriller. The vampire is humanized by his life over five hundred years ago although in the present he is an amoral feeding machine who hungers for blood and is not per say an evil creature; thus he is even more dangerous to humanity. The key to the tale is the romantic subplot between Scott and Leah provides a flicker of hope in a gloomy situation, but the authors cleverly keep that low keyed and muted as the war against THE LAST VAMPIRE takes precedence.

Harriet Klausner

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