The Last American Vampire

November 3, 2014
Grahame-Smith follows 2010’s Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter with another often fun, occasionally frustrating secret history. Lincoln’s companion Henry Sturges once lived in Roanoke, and was turned into a vampire after most of the colonists (including his pregnant wife) were slaughtered. Shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, Sturges is drawn into political intrigue when a mysterious European vampire named Grander seems to declare war on the U.S. vampires. As Sturges investigates Grander over the years, he encounters celebrities on both sides of the Atlantic, including Arthur Conan Doyle, Teddy Roosevelt, and John D. Rockefeller. Grahame-Smith clearly has fun mixing vampire mythology and politics into some well-researched history, and readers will forgive the occasional overused trope or bit of excessive cinematic theatricality, as when Sturges blows smoke through the nostrils of a decapitated head. There are some nice twists—one spoiled by the previous book, unfortunately—and fans of supernatural fights and gory killings will find plenty to enjoy.

August 1, 2014

Admit it; you wondered whether Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was pushing the envelope, but Grahame-Smith's amazing mashup pleased enough people to become a New York Times best seller. In this follow-up, vampire Henry Sturges, staggering after the shock of friend Lincoln's death, launches an epic road trip that takes him up to President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

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November 15, 2014
Grahame-Smith (Unholy Night, 2012, etc.) continues his lunatic reimagining of American history after the death of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.Keeping in mind that Grahame-Smith was responsible for the screenplay of his first Lincoln book's awful film adaptation, this sequel is still better than his more gimmicky offerings (see: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, 2009). That said, it pretty much offers much, much more of the same. As before, Grahame-Smith is supposedly writing about the secret adventures of Henry Sturges, a vampire who is finally revealing his tale. Henry's story picks up the night of Lincoln's assassination, as Henry turns Lincoln into a vampire in order to save him but loses him in the end. Later, Henry is told by Adam Plantagenet, a founder of the Union of Vampires, to seek out a mysterious "A. Grander VIII," the monsters' greatest threat and a figure from Henry's past. Mostly, Grahame-Smith creates excuses over and over to mash up cool characters from history. In London, Henry stalks Jack the Ripper in the company of Bram Stoker and Arthur Conan Doyle. Remember when Nikola Tesla killed Rasputin with his secret death ray? (OK, that part was pretty cool.) These tales of twisted history are even accompanied by historical photographs, either altered or repurposed to serve the tale. When Lincoln resurfaces later, the old friends team up with Eliot Ness and his Untouchables, not to mention that fight to the death with the book's villain on the decks of the Hindenburg. There's an overarching plot about a long-term conspiracy-imagine one of James Ellroy's novels shot through with a healthy dose of George Romero and you're just about there-but readers who are jazzed by American vampire history probably don't need the literary denouement anyway. A rather thrilling adventure spun off from a throwaway joke.

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January 1, 2015
Grahame-Smith's secret history, begun in Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (2010), continues with the story of Henry Sturges, the vampire who taught Lincoln to hunt. Styled as the results of compiled interviews with Henry, complete with first-person transcripts and photographs, this pseudo-historical adventure is bookended by presidential assassination, from Lincoln to JFK. However, its chronological scope is much wider, starting with Henry's birth as a vampire in Roanoke and following him in his work as a member of the Union, dedicated to equality of men and vampires. In that period, Henry helps Bram Stoker and Arthur Conan Doyle hunt Jack the Ripper; kills Rasputin with Tesla's teleforce weapon; flays Klansmen in the South; fails to kill Hitler; and so on. Grahame-Smith is less silly than he could be with such a madcap premise, and his presentation of history is thoroughly well researched. The serious tone is occasionally dry, notwithstanding Henry's frequent indulgence in gory ostentation and the singular novelty of learning, for example, about vampire Howard Hughes' plan to create a race of superhumans. This is a diverting read for fans of bloody mayhem and historical mash-ups.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)