Author: Kim Newman
Series: Anno Dracula
Genres: Vampires, Horror, Historical fiction
Publisher: Titan Books
Release: October 9th 2012
Source: Paperback
Pages: 480
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BLURB:
Written by award-winning novelist Kim Newman, this is a brand-new edition, with additional 40,000 word never-before-seen novella, of the popular third installment of the Anno Dracula series, Dracula Cha Cha Cha.
Rome. 1959. Count Dracula is about to marry the Moldavian Princess Asa Vajda - his sixth wife. Journalist Kate Reed flies into the city to visit the ailing Charles Beauregard and his vampire companion Geneviève. Finding herself caught up in the mystery of the Crimson Executioner who is bloodily dispatching vampire elders in the city, Kate discovers that she is not the only one on his trail...
EXPECTATIONS: I didn't like the title from the start. I knew it was called "The Judgement of Tears" in North America, and honestly, that seemed preferable. So I was picking this book up with my expectations already set low.
THE WORLD: Rome of 1959, with il Principe Dracula about to marry Moldavian princess Asa Vajda. Beautiful ruins to set a backdrop to all the new born little vampires, and older than Hell itself elders. Elders who seem to omnipotent at times, that they themselves tend to believe it. But Rome is a mother to which all paths lead, and for many - it's the last destination, especially now, with Dracula Cha Cha Cha playing in the background. A serial murder called Crimson Executioner is slaying elder vampires left and right, no one is safe. No one. Did I stress that enough to give a hint?
CHARACTERS: Kate, Genevive, and Penny cross paths again, and again it happens around the whirlpool of a man, Dracula. The joke of them being the brides of Dracula is no longer funny. But sad truth remains, they're the most clever survivors of them all, so if anyone can catch the Crimson Executioner, it will be one of them. Not without the help of the old and frail Charles Beauregard, who is determined to remain warm and breathing to the very end of it. As for Dracula... Well, let's just say that bride of his is a handful and then some.
ROMANCE: The three women in love with one man: story continues. And story ends, and honestly, it was sad, for by now I was invested.
GOOD: The myths of Mother of Tears was used very well here, I don't think I've seen such a great explanation anywhere before. Crimson Executioner is pretty much feeding Rome, for Rome, as it turns out, is as good as the oldest vampire: Rome demands blood, and Rome will have the blood, no matter by whose hand, or out of whose veins. And elders bleed oceans, which was a charming little detail, reminded me of the good old times reading Hellsing by Kohta Hirano, waiting a month for a single chapter, and receiving 12 pages of blood running down the streets.
BAD: That damned song was stuck in my head during the whole of the book, and apparently the characters within the pages were stuck with it too. Not my jam (and when it is not your jam - it is hard to jam!)
OVERALL: Right, I think I liked this book the least out of the ones that I've read in the Anno Dracula series so far. While the myth of Mother of Tears was very interesting, that was really the only good thing about the whole of the book. That, and Kate's description of Dracula, her preparation to feel the "tug" on the mind that he has, creating this sort of a whirlpool into which vampires easily fall, get drawn, and eventually get swallowed up and crushed by the might that is Dracula.
What do you think about Dracula Cha Cha Cha?
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