Refreshing blood

The Historian
By Elizabeth Kostova
Time Warner Books; $25.95

The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
—Mark Twain

And that goes for this new Dracula novel.

This is not your typical over-the-top sci-fi vampire story. Kostova doesn’t try to make you scream. Instead, the story is very intelligently written, rich with history and so original that she leads the reader’s imagination into events that actually seem plausible.

The novel does include the traditional vampire lore the reader is already familiar with, such as what vampires do (drink blood) and what they hate (crosses and garlic). However, Kostova manages to take the reader away from the same old Hollywood horror stories of meaningless death and destruction and creates a Dracula perhaps even creepier; one who seems as if he could be real. By giving the reader a historical look at events surrounding the life and death of Vlad the Impaler, she creates a subtle reality for this evil man with ambition who became a myth. When she mixes in elements of passion, fear, mystery and plain old good storytelling, it becomes a work of fiction impossible to put down.

The story is revealed mostly through letters written over the years by different characters and the recollections of the woman who has been motivated to commit the events to paper 36 years after they occurred.

When the woman was 16 years old, she found a mysterious letter in her father’s library beginning, “My dear and unfortunate successor …” and after asking her professor father about it she began to learn about frightening secrets from his past. When he suddenly disappears she is alarmed, but the fear brought on by his disappearance is even more severe, due to the fact that he told her stories about the existence of Vlad the Impaler, Dracula, in the present.

While the daughter embarks on a search for her father, she must piece together the past through letters he wrote her. Before long the past’s dangerous truths are standing right in front of her.

Here’s a summer read blending historical-fiction, suspense and a refreshing look at one of the most popular characters of terror.