Book Review: The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova

This is a massive tome. Or do I mean tomb…? What if you discovered that your widower-father was not a mild-mannered historian but, instead… A VAMPIRE HUNTER!

The caper takes us all over Europe - a veritable travelogue of bustling capitals and dusty backwaters. It holds itself ever-so seriously - occasionally dropping into the meta-narrative of fictional vampires - but always treating the gothic horror with the respect the genre deserves.

Genuinely creepy - without being gory and super-violent. It eschews the romantic and sexy tropes which dog a lot of Vampire fiction. Instead it reads like it is a genuine scholarly work. I almost felt like it should be peppered with footnotes and have a solid bibliography in the appendix.

It is a twisty-turny tale. The device of finding a historic letter which explains a plot-point is neatly done. But those letters often contain tales told by other characters within them. And, more than once, within that as well. The Matryoshka dolls become a bit bewildering at times - as I frequently found myself going a couple of pages without knowing which strand of the story I was in.

It's a lush and sensual read. Probably one for long winters' nights. And, ideally, read by candlelight.