Jstin Richard's The Parliament of Blood

When I realized that the copy of Justin Richard's The Parliament of Blood was the British version (never said Baker and Taylor's web site was user friendly, but their prices are good), I wondered what the other versions looked like-- from left: UK hard cover, UK paperback, and US hard back. Think the US version is most attractive.

Liz, George and Eddie are back after their adventures in The Death Collector. After a mummy unwrapping at the British museum ends in a farce (the mummy staggers off into a waiting taxi, which all figure is an elaborate joke), George, curator of uncatalogued items, gets an invitation to join the Damnation Club and uncovers all manner of evil plots. Liz is on stage, and happy until her father passes away-- only to come back as one of the undead. Eddie is not happy with life off the streets because school is unpleasant, so he's glad to have some intrigue to occupy him.

It turns out that the mummy was Orabis, Lord of the Dead, and the savior that slumbering vampires all over London have been waiting for. He needs blood, so Victorian London is starting to see bloodless corpses littered about. Orabis' henchmen are well placed in government, so there's no contacting the police to help when things go wrong. There's a lot of action in this book, lots of teeth sinking into necks, but it's not overly gruesome. The plot has engaging twists: George ends up saving the day with a bit of engineering.

I'm not doing well outlining the plot because I'm preoccupied with testing tape recorders today, but I will say this: I started this book yesterday morning, and at several times during the day I thought "Ooh! This is waiting for me at the end of the day!" Thought about not finishing it this morning because I overslept a bit, but had to find out how it ends. And I don't like vampire books, remember. This one could almost stand alone, but reading The Death Collector would help a lot. Definitely buy both, because they will circulate well. My only complaint-- the cover should have matched the first book better. I would have gone with a textured mummy to match the textured dinosaur on the first book.