The Night Crossing by Robert Masello

Robert Masello is an award-winning journalist, television writer, and the bestselling author of many books, most recently the supernatural and historical thrillers, The Night Crossing, The Jekyll Revelation and The Einstein Prophecy. And his newest book, The Haunting of H.G. Wells, is about to be released this month.

I have just finished reading The Night Crossing and it was a ripper. I have always been interested in Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. Born in Ireland in 1847, at the height of the Irish Potato Famine, he was a sick child who spent most of his first 7 years in bed, until he suddenly and inexplicably regained his strength. The family doctor recommended he develop this by walking, slowly and steadily along the Clontarf seafront – and soon Stoker began covering long distances, without pausing for breath. Initially it was tough medicine, but gradually he began to relish it. By age 17, Stoker had grown into a 6ft 2in red-haired, red-bearded giant of a man, and won a stream of athletic honours in his first year at Trinity College Dublin. He joined the prestigious debating team and history club and became a well-regarded athlete and endurance walker at school. But walking was his passion, and he was among Ireland’s first champion race walkers. He was never beaten, his sole failure to win coming via disqualification after he’d won the five-mile race at the Civil Service championships in London in 1868.

He graduated from Trinity in 1871 and that seems to mark the end of his athletic endeavours, but he did continue his involvement with the sport, judging the racewalk at the first Irish National Championships in 1873. Later, during a marathon stroll of the Aberdeenshire countryside, he stumbled upon Cruden Bay, the atmospheric fishing village where in 1895 he wrote a horror story entitled Dracula, published two years later under the name Bram Stoker. The rest, as they say, is literary history.

Yes, he was a racewalker in those foregone days - no wonder I like him!

Here's the blurb

It begins among the Carpathian peaks, when an intrepid explorer discovers a mysterious golden box. She brings it back with her to the foggy streets of Victorian London, unaware of its dangerous power…or that an evil beyond imagining has already taken root in the city.

Stoker, a successful theater manager but frustrated writer, is drawn into a deadly web spun by the wealthy founders of a mission house for the poor. Far from a safe haven, the mission harbors a dark and terrifying secret.

To save the souls of thousands, Stoker — aided by the explorer and a match girl grieving the loss of her child — must pursue an enemy as ancient as the Saharan sands where it originated. Their journey will take them through the city’s overgrown graveyards and rat-infested tunnels and even onto the maiden voyage of the world’s first “unsinkable” ship.

Masello's book centres around Bram Stoker and it set in Victorian England, with a whole range of historical characters including Sir Henry Irving and Arthur Conan Doyle. Masello combines real history and real facts about Stoker, Doyle, etc, with wonderful fantasy elements to create a gothic horror tale. Masello recreates the horrid conditions of the workhouses, the Victorian craze for Egyptology and Victorian London itself. And just when you think it's all over, the story jumps 30 years and the chase it taken up again. The story is eventually wrapped up very nicely, with all the loose ends fixed. 

I think Stoker would have approved.

A wonderful read that I devoured over several days.

I liked it so much, I have just ordered The Jeckyl Revelation by the same author.