To The Last Page

Holy vampires! I would imagine that it's difficult for any writer to find any new spin on vampire lore, but Marcus Sedgwick has a fair go at it in Love Like Blood . He not only finds two new ways of looking at the subject that consider arcane aspects of the love of blood and the drinking of it from a scientific and a religious perspective, but he ties them together well and with some conviction. More importantly however, Sedgwick creates a thoroughly delicious horror-thriller that is never short on new twists and escalating developments. The scientific context of the study of blood, its properties and various mysterious practices associated with it, comes from the character at the centre of the book. Charles Jackson is a doctor, a consultant in matters related to blood diseases, but specifically on the subject of haemophilia. And interest in blood, the love of blood and love as blood all come together in 1951 when Charles encounters a beautiful American student in Paris who is writ...