David’s Haunted Library: Alethia and Drawing Dead

Little Ridge is an odd little town, there is an island somewhere off the coast but no one seems to remember where it is. It all started when a couple of the town’s residents started to disappear. One day Thettie Harper and her family discover one of the missing people it causes problems within the whole town. Thettie’s one ally is Lee and it’s up to them to find answers.

What really might be causing the problems in the town is the lake itself. There is something evil in that lake below the island that is haunting Little Ridge This is a book about the horror of losing your memory, what we leave behind and terror itself.

Aletheia by J.S. Breukelaar is about the damage that has been done and the damage that will happen. The story has elements of the supernatural and a love story to it. This is a complex character driven novel that you really have to pay attention to in order to get all the details right. Most of all I loved the mood of the story and the fact that it has to deal with how choices we made in the past change how thing will be in the present. Aletheia is a book that builds slowly to a good ending and if you like a well thought out ghost story you will like it.

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Faolan O’Connor grew up in New York City and joined the mob at an early age. He worked as a hired killer in order to get power, respect, and money, but little by little it destroyed his family and everything he loved. One fateful night in 1935 he goes out to perform his last hit, hoping to die in the process. What he gets instead is immortality from a vampire and the boss of New York, Darcy Killian. Faolan’s whole world changes but not how you think it would.

Faolan already led a life of violence and destruction, but as a vampire, his feelings start to change. He wants power but he wants to help his city too. The only way he can do that is by taking down the boss of New York, Killian. He may have a lot of enemies but he makes a lot of friends on the way, if he plays his cards right he may get redemption and the power he desires.

Drawing Dead by Brian McKinley is a novel about vampire mobsters set during The Great Depression in New York City. Just the way this novel feels when you start reading, hooked me right away. The Way Brian describes the surroundings and the characters showed that he really did his homework on what life was like in organized crime and in the Depression. When you read this book you feel like you are right there with the characters and you know them personally.

It’s hard to pick out my favorite scenes in this book since there were so many. The one I loved was after Faolan wins a promotion from his boss, he decides to return to his mother’s home because he feels the need to reconcile with all of the evil and destruction he has caused in the past. When he gets there he finds that his mother has passed and there are squatters living in his boyhood home. At this point, he has to decide to let his vampire instincts kick in and kill the family or have mercy on them. What he does is a total surprise and shows how Faolan is evolving as a character. Another part that really stands out is a scene where a vampire named Frank shows that he is not the evil monster that we think he is, but if you find out his secret, it could be the last secret you ever find out.

There is also a great scene where Killian shows Faolan what he has planned for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Killian’s vision sounds like it’s a step in the direction of what America is like in the present day with small businesses becoming a thing of the past and corporations running everything. As Faolan is hearing this, he is thinking that he doesn’t like this New York of the future and loves his city the way it is. While reading this I found myself wondering how Faolan would change as a character when he reaches the present day. Since he is a vampire he would still be around.

Drawing Dead could be considered a masterpiece, It’s a tale of redemption that works as a horror novel, a crime novel and it fits nicely into the historical fiction category. Though what really makes this novel great is how complex the characters are. Each of them has good and bad points, even the main villain doesn’t come across as pure evil. This was a novel that for me was hard to put down and you don’t have to be a vampire or organized crime fan to love it, my favorite parts were all the references to the 1930’s. Brian McKinley is an author to watch in the future and there will be more books to come in this series.