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In this new book by the author of The Chalk Man (2018) and The Drift (2023), big-city detective Barbara Atkins is sent to a small Alaskan town to investigate a homicide. Why? Because the victim’s body has been drained of its blood, and Atkins is an expert in vampyr forensics. In this brilliantly imagined story, vampyr have been around at least as long as humans; they have their own culture, their own colonies, and their own laws (and they are protected under human law). They are not the capital-M monsters from horror movies, but rather the objects of bigotry and hatred by some humans. There are those who believe that all vampyr should be exterminated, which is why Atkins’s job is so important: if she determines this victim was indeed killed by a vampyr, she could be condemning an entire colony to extermination. But who else could be behind this grisly murder? Tudor is a masterful storyteller, and here she does some of her finest work, approaching vampyr mythology from an exciting new angle and creating some of her most memorable human characters.

Publishers Weekly
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Vampires, or “vampyrs,” roam the earth—and provoke heated political debate—in this wildly imaginative supernatural thriller from Tudor (The Drift). Though vampyrs rarely attack humans, hostility toward them in the early 20th century led to the decimation of the species and their relegation to several remote colonies across the United States. In 1983, the federal government enacted the Vampyr Protection Act, declaring them a protected species and polarizing the electorate—right-wing religious fanatics believe vampyrs should be exterminated, while “woke liberals” consider them vulnerable minorities. Against this fraught backdrop, homicide detective Barbara Atkins, who has her PhD in forensic vampyr anthropology, is dispatched to the small town of Deadhart, Alaska, after local teen Marcus Anderson is killed and his neighbors blame a vampyr. While the citizens of Deadhart prepare to cull the nearby vampyr colony in retaliation, Atkins teams up with the local sheriff to investigate Marcus’s death. As they dig, Atkins and the sheriff come to suspect the vampyr theory is cover for a much more personal motive—and then someone else turns up dead. Tudor leverages her snowbound setting for maximum atmosphere, and never lets her high-concept premise overwhelm patient character development. This frostbitten procedural is a bloody good time. Agent: Madeleine Milburn, Madeleine Milburn Literary. (Apr.)