In 1972, a 16-year-old American living in Amsterdam finds a mysterious book in her
diplomat father's library. The book is ancient, blank except for a sinister woodcut of a dragon and
the word "Drakulya," but it's the letters tucked inside, dated 1930 and addressed to
"My dear and unfortunate successor," that really pique her curiosity. Her widowed father,
Paul, reluctantly provides pieces of a chilling story; it seems this ominous little book has a way of
forcing itself on its owners, with terrifying results. Paul's former adviser at Oxford, Professor
Rossi, became obsessed with researching Dracula and was convinced that he remained alive. When Rossi
disappeared, Paul continued his quest with the help of another scholar, Helen, who had her own
reasons for seeking the truth. As Paul relates these stories to his daughter, she secretly begins her
own research. Kostova builds suspense by revealing the threads of her story as the narrator discovers
them: what she's told, what she reads in old letters and, of course, what she discovers directly when
the legendary threat of Dracula looms. Along with all the fascinating historical information, there's
also a mounting casualty count, and the big showdown amps up the drama by pulling at the heartstrings
at the same time it revels in the gruesome. Exotic locales, tantalizing history, a family legacy and
a love of the bloodthirsty: it's hard to imagine that readers won't be bitten, too.
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Andrew Marlow, has a license to ask prying questions as he unravels the secrets and
pursues the truth, because he is a psychiatrist. Even though Marlow comes across as a sensible, trained
therapist, after only the briefest of encounters with his newly hospitalized patient, the renowned painter
Robert Oliver, Marlow develops an obsessive desire to solve the mystery of why Oliver attempted to slash a
painting in the National Gallery. Marlow is himself a painter, and the Oliver case has been given to him
because of his knowledge of art. But Oliver is uncooperative and mute, though he conveniently gives Marlow
permission to talk to anyone in his life before falling silent. Oliver's inexplicable behavior, which
includes poring over a stolen cache of old letters written in French, triggers what can only be called a rampant
counter transference response in Marlow, whose overwhelming obsession becomes a strange and frequently
far-fetched journey of discovery as he persists to the point of trespass and invasion.
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