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This imaginative novel puts a fresh and frightening new spin on Bram Stoker's"Dracula" as it focuses on his mad servant Renfield. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Like Tim Lucas in The Book of Renfield (2005), Hambly retells Bram Stoker's Dracula from the viewpoint of its most memorable peripheral character, the mad, insect-eating Renfield. His role as the count's human factotum and facilitator complicates a larger story in which Renfield struggles to conceal from conniving relatives and doctors the whereabouts of his beloved wife and daughter. Though Renfield dies at his employer's hands before the end in Stoker's original, Hambly (Circle of the Moon) contrives an imaginative way to prolong his involvement in the story. Unfortunately, the madman's ravings become repetitive, tedious and improbable once certain truths about him are revealed. Though Hambly tries to craft a portrait of Renfield as a tragic victim, his frequent references to Stoker's characters and their adventures only remind the reader that a more interesting vampire adventure is unfolding beyond the borders of Renfield's asylum and the events of this novel. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information