Perhaps the fact that it was set in the world of television news, a bastion of evil and the undead if I've ever seen one, or its promise of "biting satire", that had me hoping the author would be able to breathe some fresh life into the story and make the undead alive again in a way they have not been for over a century. That John Marks had worked behind the scenes for the original television news magazine 60 Minutes made it seem all the more likely that he would be able to deliver on the promise of opening a vein or two when it came to writing about the world of television news, in the process of telling his story.
Associate producer at the venerable TV news show The Hour, Evangeline Harker is much like her predecessor in Stoker's Dracula, Jonathan Harker — young, wide-eyed, newly engaged, and anxious to succeed in her chosen profession. So when she is sent off to Romania in an effort to meet with the mysterious Ion Torgu, reputed to be the head of all of Eastern Europe's underworld activity from drugs to prostitution, to asses his potential as the subject for an interview, she disregards her colleagues' premonitions of danger.
Evangeline is given even an extra warning in the form of a mysterious woman, Clementine Spence, whom she meets in the hotel coffee shop in Bucharest. As they are both headed for the same ultimate destination - the small town in Transylvania (an odd coincidence that Evangeline fails to understand the significance of as she fails to understand the significance of most things until it's too late) where Evangeline is supposed to meet her contact - the offer of a ride seems like the most natural of suggestions on Evangeline's part.
It turns out that Clementine is her last chance at turning back from a road to... well, we're in Transylvania and Evangeline is meeting with a man who will insist that she leave with him immediately and then attempts to cut her off from the rest of the world by making her sign a series of letters telling everyone that she's secreted in negotiations of a delicate nature and can't be reached. Does any of this sound familiar? Well it's straight from Stoker's Dracula of course.
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