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Dracula Dossier (2008)

by James Reese(Favorite Author)

3.03 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

161684941X (ISBN13: 9781616849412)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

HarperCollins Publishers

review 1: "In The Dracula Dossier, James Reese attempts a suspense novel written in the style of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Stoker and his literary friends take on the Jack The Ripper murderer and encounter many of the people and situations that would inspire Stoker to write his Dracula.[return][return]First, weaknesses. The plot moves SLOWLY. Stoker and his friends whine constanly like true Victorians (fair to call this a weakness?) and are generally unlikeable. The style is difficult and needlessly showy, although again, to be fair, this is part of the point since the original Dracula also was written in this style. That doesn't make it any more enjoyable to slog through, however. The supernatural aspects of the story don't seem believable (and I read almost every vampire book t... morehat comes into print, so I'm not prejudiced against the genre).[return][return]Second, the strengths. The research is utterly fascinating. Assuming it is research, because there is no foreword or afterword to explain whether ANY of it was based on fact or whether it was just written to look like it. I think that the research alone makes this book worth reading IF such things as the following are true:[return]- The footnotes[return]- The newspaper articles[return]- The police reports on the murders[return]- The people Bram Stoker encounters[return]I think they're true. They're presented as if they are true. BUT the cover of the books says, "A Novel of Suspense" and there's nothing, not one word, explaining whether any of the book was based in fact. Which made the whole book very frustrating, as those historical (?) details were the most rewarding thing about reading it. As I have no intention of re-researching every item of interest to see if it was made up or real, the whole thing feels like a cheat. That said, I think the addition of an afterword would fix the problem and make the book worth the effort it takes to read it."
review 2: Bram Stoker finds his inspiration for Dracula in the real life murders of Jack the Ripper. A promising premise, no? If only the book had delivered on it. Bad, convoluted, irritating. A mess of a novel with multiple narratives (not unlike the structure of Dracula), as Stoker, Lady Jane Wilde (Oscar’s mother) and Thomas Hall Caine (noted novelist and homo) strive to stop an killer who may be possessed by an ancient Egyptian god. Featuring lots of historical figures: actors Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, Ripper suspect Dr. Francis Tumblety and Inspector Frederick Abberline, and secret society The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, so many various parts equals bleugh. It takes far too long to get the story going. I enjoy historical fact in novels but when it is hammered in, you’re inundated with it or worse, the plot has to be uncomfortably wedged around true events, it becomes a big fat why bother? The whole thing feels forced with much of the plot dictated by the timeline of real events. This leads to the main characters spending a lot of time behind the scenes as real events unfold. It’s cobbled together in a way that makes it all feel phony, unbelievable and the pacing is excruciatingly slow at times with the story mired under by a tomes worth of exposition or historical fact. The plot is both predictable and unfathomable. I was very disappointed especially since it had so much promise. It has the general sense of having been done before and much better. Dracula is a brilliant novel. Bram Stoker was clearly a talented writer and this novel does nothing positive to serve the memory of either. less

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