23 Hours

Vampire hunter Laura Caxton is back again! That’s right: David Wellington, one of the brighter lights on the horror fiction scene these days, has brought back the seasoned police detective and vampire slayer from his previous three novels (13 BULLETS, 99 COFFINS, and VAMPIRE ZERO) for a fourth go-round in 23 HOURS. But there are plenty of new challenges for Caxton, and plenty of breakneck action to please fans of Wellington’s previous works. We find Caxton inside the Marcy State Correctional Institution as the novel begins, having been arrested and tried for the kidnapping and torture of an informant from a previous case. A former cop is a potential target for hardcore inmates, and before the end of page 3, Caxton is the center of a cafeteria riot and brought before a hardened inmate who wants to make Caxton her slave. But Caxton still has her fighting skills, and manages to break free. When order is restored, the sadistic prison warden confines Caxton to the Secure Housing Unit, an area where inmates are stripped of all rights and privacy. Meanwhile, Caxton’s former fellow officers — including her police photographer girlfriend, Clara Hsu — are investigating the scene of recent murders by vampires. Clara and the other officers know they need Caxton’s help, but are at a loss to figure out how she could guide them from prison. Against the warning of her superior, Clara visits Caxton at Marcy State and tries to brief her on the latest series of vampire attacks. Not long after the visit, Caxton senses something is terribly wrong inside the prison. And her fears are confirmed as she discovers that her nemesis, Justinia Malvern — the world’s oldest living vampire — has infiltrated the penitentiary. In short order, prison orderlies are made into “half-deads,” indentured servants existing in withering corpses. The warden, in fact, assisted Malvern's invasion of the prison when the elder vampire promised the terminally ill man eternal life as one of her brood. But what’s worse, Caxton learns that Clara never left the prison grounds, and is being held hostage by Malvern and the warden. And Caxton is told that she has 23 hours to surrender to Malvern, or Clara will be killed.   Wellington knows that pacing is essential to a story like this, and he deliver the goods. The action and various confrontations are nonstop and enhanced with all the requisite violence and suspense needed to keep the pages turning. Indeed, 23 HOURS feels like a classic piece of pulp fiction. But amazingly, Wellington never insults his readers’ intelligence with outrageous plot twists or coincidences. Then, when we think we know how things will be resolved, Wellington fools our expectations with an ending that not only works, but leaves us wanting more. Newcomers to Wellington or his vampire hunter series won’t be seriously disadvantaged if they decide to start with this latest entry. There is enough background provided to fill in new reader without slowing things down. But you’ll want to immediately grab hold of the preceding novels to find out how Caxton and Malvern got to this point. For the initiates, it’s simply enough to say, again, that Caxton is back. —Alan Cranis Buy it at Amazon. OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR: • MONSTER ISLAND by David Wellington

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