Outrageously good third novel in Kim Newman's alternate world Anno Dracula series, where Dracula won and vampires were outed. After Victorian London and the trenches of France, this outing takes place in the bustling, lively, swinging city of Rome, 1959. Kate Reed arrives to see the aged and infirm Charles Beauregard one last time, only to find herself witness to the brutal murder of two vampire elders. Genevieve is also in Rome, caring for Charles, and Dracula himself is nearby, living out the years of his exile in the Castle Otranto, but engaged to be married, thus possibly signalling his impending reemergence onto the world stage. Keeping an eye on things for British intelligence is the suave, deadly, if rather shallow, newborn agent, Hamish Bond. Running Dracula's household is one Penny Churchward, an old friend of Kate and Charles, and under her spell is the American, Tom Ripley.
Faces familiar and unfamiliar, fictional and real, human and vampire jostle in the crowded streets and scenes and parties. The Crimson Executioner cuts a flamboyantly bloody swathe through more vampire elders, rival powers stalk each other and jockey for position, but who is behind the killings? And what does Dracula intend when his dynasty is joined to another?
I love this stuff, this clever, multi-referential, sharply written, bloody confection that mixes murder and comedy and spies and stars, that looks at death and life and undeath and unlife and tries to make some sense of it all, or at least come to terms with what little sense there is. Included in this edition is the novella Aquarius, a tale of murder and revolt and a wide variety of coppers and plods set in swinging London, 1968, featuring Kate and her investigations on the behalf of the Diogenes Club into the murder by a vampire, of a young woman, as the dark tides and passions of the sixties' underbelly roll towards a violent explosion.
If I have a criticism of this volume, it's the annotations, which I enjoy. Only annotations for Cha Cha Cha are included, and even they feel a little sparse. I could have done with a run-down on some of the bit players in Aquarius. It doesn't detract from the novel or the novella, but it would have added to them, for me, anyway.