Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two: The Historian

I've read Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian once before, about eight years ago, so I didn't remember many of the details and it was almost like reading the book for the first time.  I do remember that I found this academic vampire-hunting story really terrifying when I read it as a teenager, and while it is still pretty chilling, I was not nearly so terrified this time around.  This is a long novel, but I was so absorbed with it that I found it difficult to put down and ended up reading it fairly quickly.  One website described it as an atmospheric novel; I'm not sure that's quite the word I'd pick.  While there are frequent descriptions academic research related to Dracula (as fifteenth-century ruler of Wallachia, not as vampire) and of the many beautiful settings--this book takes place all over 20th-century Europe, from Cambridge to Istanbul, Amsterdam to Venice, and of course in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania--there is also plenty of action.  This is, after all, a book about hunting down Dracula and his vampire minions, and it certainly includes the necessary bites to the neck and stabbings through the heart.  There is a lot of mystery to counterbalance the longer descriptive passages, and as I said, I found it really hard to put this book down.  It's not for the faint of heart, but if you're looking for an engrossing read with fascinating characters, lush settings, and a good helping of action and mystery, this is a great choice.