The new Chief of Police in the town of Bistritz must track down a murderer of legend: Count Dracula.
Widower and retired military man Kálváry Istvan had been contemplating suicide, his beloved wife Julia two years dead – destroying his plans to retire to the country and travel – and his long military career coming to an end. When word of Istvan’s melancholy reached Kaiser Franz Joseph, the Kaiser appointed Istvan as Chief of Police in the Bistritz District in Transylvania. Istvan expected his new assignment to be uneventful given its position at the end of a railway line in the Carpathian Mountain foothills. As soon as Istvan arrives, however, he hears about the disappearances that have plagued the region, and after a talk with Acting Chief Gábor Kasza, who’d been tasked with tracking the unsolved murders and kidnappings, Istvan realizes there’s more going on in the little town than meets the eye.
Author Chip Wagar’s THE CARPATHIAN ASSIGNMENT is a re-imagining of the lore created by Bram Stoker in his classic 19th-century novel Dracula. It is not a mash-up, made popular as of late with books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, nor is it simply a re-telling of Stoker’s seminal text. THE CARPATHIAN ASSIGNMENT fills in the gaps of the “Transylvanian part” that Stoker left out, creating its own lore by weaving in new characters and Eastern European tradition, superstition, and history with characters found in Stoker’s Dracula, now playing a supporting role. Wagar’s novel brings to mind traditional Gothic literature, with the setting playing as much of a role as the characters. His descriptions of the local landscape and people are beautifully written, but not overbearing or flowery. The characters are well fleshed out, entirely believable, and they play well against the Transylvanian backdrop. One minor error in word usage aside – the terms “serial killer” or “serial murderer”, which weren’t used until the 1970s – the research into the history and traditions of the novel’s setting and people seems to be sound; even should additional errors be found, Wagar expertly connects everything together so that it shouldn’t matter.
THE CARPATHIAN ASSIGNMENT is a superbly-written novel, with obvious pains taken on research and presentation, and should delight fans of Dracula, the Gothic, and old-school horror.
~ IndieReader.