Giving the man who invented Dracula a horror story of his own, the author re-creates Stoker’s real-life world and friends: theater impresario Henry Irving, novelist Thomas Henry Hall Caine, Lady Jane Wilde (Oscar’s mom) and assorted others.
James Reese has been praised for his "sweeping narrative" ( Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, MS), "vivid characters" ( Washington Post Book World), and "imaginative wizardry" ( Orlando Sentinel), and The Dracula Dossier is perhaps his most stunning achievement to date.Reese ( The Book of Shadows, 2002, etc.) sends Jack the Ripper after Bram Stoker in yet another fog-laden tale of mutilation. Moving from Manhattan to London's West End and Whitechapel, from Dublin to a ritualistic denouement in Edinburgh, this sweeping, magnificent novel is a suspenseful trip into the heart of literature and history, as Stoker sets out on the "true" adventure that will later inspire him to write Dracula. When they discover that the murder weapon is a Gurkha knife owned by Stoker and recently stolen from his home, there can be no doubt that the elusive American doctor - Francis Tumblety - is the very same man terrorizing and taunting London as Jack the Ripper. To clear his name, he enlists some of his illustrious friends, including Walt Whitman, Lady Jane Wilde (mother of Oscar), and the million-copy-selling Victorian novelist Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine. And Stoker somehow becomes the prime suspect. Little does he know that just a few steps away, the crime spree of the century has begun: a vicious killer has claimed his first victim, a local prostitute.
But before Stoker can be certain, the man disappears. Amid the shadows, he spies a seemingly familiar figure, a man resembling a quack American "doctor" of his acquaintance. Late one night Stoker decides to take a stroll through the streets of Whitechapel, an impoverished district of London known for its many prostitutes as well as the citizenry crowding its shadowy alleys. Stalled in his writing career and feeling overwhelmed by his charismatic, successful boss Sir Henry Irving, Bram Stoker returns to London in the summer of 1888 determined to turn his life around.
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