London Under Midnight

London Under Midnight

From BooklistHere's a treat for horror fans. When mysterious graffiti starts appearing all over London, magazine writer Ben Ashton is hired to write a story about the person behind it. Little does Ben know that the graffiti ("Vampire Sharkz. They 're coming to get you") isn't just pointless vandalism. Like Anne Rice in her early vampire novels, Clark really gets under the skin of the modern vampire; rarely has the psychological trauma of transforming from mortal to immortal been rendered so movingly, and rarely has the vampire bloodlust been so vividly described. Clark, familiar to some fans of horror fiction but largely unknown by everybody else, deserves a much wider audience. This thrilling, terrifying, and deeply affecting story might just be the one that captures it for him. David PittCopyright ? American Library Association. All rights reservedA novel of vampiric terror from one of the masters of the genre Vampyr Sharkz ? ?They?re coming to get you?. The graffiti spread through London that summer like wildfire. Its population carried on with life as usual in one of the richest cities on the planet. But beneath the surface there is change. Men and women are going missing without trace. What has the old African preacher seen emerging from undergrowth near the river? Is this the essence of evil encountered long ago? Ben Ashton is an investigative writer. When he's commissioned to find out who is responsible for the Vampyr Sharkz graffiti he thinks his luck has changed for the better. Little does he guess how wrong he is?From Publishers WeeklyClark's efforts at an original variation on the vampire theme yield a novel whose plot is farfetched even by the standards of supernatural fiction. Journalist Ben Ashton is researching the origins of a graffiti tag scrawled around London warning of "Vampire Sharkz" when he encounters a real vampire in the person of unrequited flame April Connor. April is one of a rapidly growing pack of vampirized mortals doing the bidding of Edshu, an African trickster god who, for reasons murkily elaborated, is using London, and his antagonism of Ben specifically, as a means of testing the moral mettle of all humanity. Much mayhem ensues before Ben discovers that the only effective way to eliminate the vampire scourge is through the power of positive thinking. Clark (Darkness Demands) keeps the action brisk and the gore pulsing, but the novel's events are so contrived that they have to be explained for the reader's benefit in windy oratory passages from an eccentric displaced African preacher, who's the only one who can make any sense out of them. This is passable pulp, but anemic fare as far as vampire fiction goes.Copyright ? Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.ReviewClark's one of the best! -- StarburstFrom the AuthorLONDON UNDER MIDNIGHT: JOIN THE VIRTUAL TOUR Sometimes I'm asked if my stories are set in places that actually exist. Partly to answer that question I've created a virtual tour combined with video postcard that can be viewed at the Simon Clark site. The film visits the ancient harbor town of Whitby in England that features in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Incidentally, fans of Stoker should find a pleasant surprise or two. After that, the film moves to London to prowl the back streets of Whitechapel where Jack the Ripper launched his reign of terror.London Under Midnight is my first urban novel - most, like Darkness Demands, have a rural setting. As for the story, it's a vampire novel in the tradition of Vampyrrhic and Vampyrrhic Rites. Probably the real jumping-point, however, was my short story, Vamphyrrhic Outcast.To finish on a vampiric theme, Jack-of-Bones that closes the Hotel Midnight collection has been nominated for a BFS award, so many thanks for those who voted.Simon ClarkAbout the AuthorSimon Clark, described as ""one of the most exciting British horror writers around,"" is the author of nume