The 22nd novel from the dazzlingly popular vampire chronicler (The Vampire Lestat,
The Witching Hour, etc.) brings her familiar undead characters into New Orleans's underworld of
witches, and then to the jungles of Central America. Charismatic, biracial Merrick Mayfair comes from
a New Orleans caste bound up with traditions of voodoo; she's also descended from the powerful Mayfair
witch clan. Once a supernatural detective, now a vampire himself, narrator David Talbot took care of
Merrick when she was in her teens, but hasn't seen her in years. Rice-watchers will remember Talbot
and the Mayfairs, and also the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac and the girl Claudia, who now torments
Louis from the afterworld. When Louis asks Talbot to raise Claudia's ghost, Talbot pleads with Merrick
to use her rare talents and to revisit the past they share. Can Merrick really conjure the dead?
Should she? What of the unspoken erotic charge between Talbot and Merrick? What secrets lie in the
magical artifacts Merrick will have to find, and then to wield? And what do they have to do with her
dead parents? This volume merges several long-running plots; the first chapters sag with the weight of
their exposition, and the prose seems overheated even for Rice. Vampire fans will no doubt plunge on,
however; soon enough, Merrick must revisit the Guatemalan rainforest, where she traveled as a young
girl, to locate a secret treasure trove of ominous ancient runes. Displaying her imaginative talents
for atmosphere and suspense, Rice creates a riveting scene that shows Merrick's awesome magic at work.
A potent cameo from the vampire Lestat, with whom the fabled series began, leaves hints of more dark
tales to come.
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