I've recently written about Robert Massello's Albert Einstein related historical novel. I now jump back further to another Massello novel which featured Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, It was called the Night Crossing(https://timsbestreads.blogspot.com/p/the-night-crossing-by-robert-masello.html) and was probably a better read.
Now let's make the jump to another Bram Stoker novel which is also a fine yarn. It's called Stoker's Wild and was written by Steven Hopstaken and Melissa Prusi. The premise:
Years before either becomes a literary legend, Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde must overcome their disdain for one another to battle the Black Bishop, a madman wielding supernatural forces to bend the British Empire to his will.
It hangs together well, a the following Publisher's Weekly review explains
“Morbid and fascinating” is how a character aptly sums up the events of this entertaining supernatural mash-up. Employing the entwined lives of Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker as a springboard, Hopstaken and Prusi weave their weird tale from imagined occult experiences that might have influenced the 19th-century authors to write, respectively, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula. This includes their efforts to thwart a decadent splinter sect of the Order of the Golden Dawn, obsessed with achieving immortality, that has been transformed into a horde of vampires infiltrating London under the guidance of the nefarious Black Bishop. The novel is briskly paced, owing in part to its fast-cutting epistolary format, and the authors enliven the plot by introducing characters who clearly anticipate those who will appear in Stoker and Wilde’s tales, as well as real-life celebrities including Ellen Terry, Lillie Langtry, and Sir Richard Burton. Hopstaken and Prusi have done their homework and produced a pleasing period penny dreadful.
It is written as a series of epistolary portions, via Stoker's journal and Wilde's diary. Those written by Oscar were often hilarious and scathing all at once. Those of Stoker are much more serious and weighty. It is very well crafted and the story flows, based firstly on the perspective of one of the two heroes, then switches to the other.
You could hardly imagine two more widely differing figures who find themselves thrown together in the rollicking tale. They are two opposites of the era which makes them such a good pairing.
The ending features a fantastic set-piece at Stonehenge that approaches dark fantasy territory and events are set up perfectly for the sequel, Stoker's Wilde West, where the unlikely duo venture to America to help their ally, Robert Roosevelt.
Again, I suspect that Bram Stoker would be pleased with this latest book about him!
4.5 stars.
