Exemplary Horror Thriller (5 stars)
Night Brothers - A Vampire Novel is a chilling blend of straight-up occult horror with the pacing and excitement of an action thriller. The pace accelerates smoothly and in the story’s latter stages moves to its climax at breakneck speed. Alison and Travis have settled down to manage a small-town newspaper when mysterious and lethal animal attacks start occurring. Parallel with that we are shown Navarra’s occult practice, controlling animals to attack residents as cover for her taking their blood to continue her life-in-death. In the story’s middle she takes an interest in Alison, and this unfolds in a superbly controlled manner redolent of such spiritual horror as Henry James' Turn of the Screw.
Most impressive was the detail and backstory given for all the characters, even relatively minor ones. It’s done with deft and swift economy, never impeding story flow. I realized as I read this how much more powerful mystery and action in any genre become when the reader is given a fuller picture of each character. Thus do character motivation, desire, regrets, preferences, fears, and all the panoply of human emotions percolate in the background as the action unfolds. That said, the story has a multiple protagonist, an ensemble of characters who work together opposing the antagonist, Navarra, and those retainers she gathers about her. Usually I prefer a single heroic protagonist, but this approach works well here.
The story exhibits a rare blend of physical horror, the psychological horror of Navarra’s selective control of minds, and the spiritual horror of her origins, especially in the lengths she’s gone to over the centuries to maintain her line.
Stephen J Carter | SF Novelist
