Dawn of the Vampire
Review by The Mad Bibliographer, submitted on 15-Mar-1995

Adapted from the column "Vampires in Print" in _The Vampire's Crypt_ No. 3 (Spring 1991).

William Hill. _Dawn of the Vampire_. (Pinnacle, 1991).

Review by Cathy Krusberg

_Dawn of the Vampire_ begins with the discovery of a silver necklace with two fiery opals that frees the spirit and substance of Viktor Von Damme. He can now continue his unlife's work, for he is a new breed of vampire--a vampire who can walk in the daylight!

Sportswriter Troy Bane gets involved when his long-time buddy Dillon Urich goes missing while investigating a death near South Holston Lake-- the lake that covered Wreythville (d'you *believe* the names in this book? Bane? Wreythville? Von Damme?) until a three-month drought brought its water level to an all-time low. At the same time, quiet Bristol, Tennessee, began to get lively in a horrifying way, with missing persons, wolf pack attacks, bodies disappearing from morgues, the Wreythville cemetery losing some of its inhabitants....

Troy enlists a group of old friends to help on his quest. He also finds himself subjected to a series of weird dreams or visions--visions of Wreythville as it was before the waters covered it, visions of people walking its streets. Indeed, the book gets increasingly nightmarish as it progresses. By ones and twos, Troy's friends are picked off-- attacked by fireproof wolves, by sarcastic vampires, by *things* .... Even when Dillon reappears to the remaining handful of friends, his description of a Satanic cult behind recent occurrences rings false. Still, he's the only lead they have, and lead he does--to the caves by the spillway, the place the vampires call home. Here Viktor Von Damme himself takes Troy prisoner, for Troy can tell him the whereabouts of the box that held the necklace--and *him*--prisoner for so long. Von Damme amuses himself by describing to Troy the warring factions of vampires that have been causing much of the excitement in the area. Some vampires don't *want* access to the daylight, it seems. Van Damme encourages Troy to listen closely to the tale--he won't live to hear another narrative.

Hill's plot is suspenseful and cohesive enough to work--but no more. Some leads simply are not followed up, or not followed through conclusively. That kind of thing happens in real life but makes for badly-structured fiction--sorry, naturalism fans. Read the book for the people, not the plot. Maybe skim most of it; watch closely as Troy meets a few key vampires (who are pretty interesting), and skim on to the end, occasionally slowing down to enjoy a surprise or two. Then give your copy to the Salvation Army. It's impossible to keep fingerprints off that silver-blue cover, anyway.