Fangland by John Marks

After some time in the horror wilderness, Dracula is back. But following the daft gothic chick-lit thrills of Elizabeth Kostova's bestseller, The Historian, comes a truly unsettling Transylvanian effort.

John Marks pays ingenious tribute to Bram Stoker's original Dracula - this time, it is the New York TV news reporter Evangeline Harker who goes to Romania to meet the criminal overlord Torgu, a figure who wishes to introduce himself to New York society.

But Torgu's image cannot be captured on a video camera. And Evangeline finds herself trapped in the old Communist-era hotel, in the heart of the Transylvanian mountains, in which Torgu lives. Vampirism here is not a simple matter of fangs - it is also an infection of the soul, via language, with hypnotic recitation of place names where humanity's worst atrocities have taken place.

The narrative takes a darkly satirical slant in New York, with Torgu seeking to transmit his vampirism via modern media. There are moments throughout of jump-up-and-down-on-the-sofa scariness. The Romanian tourist board won't like it.