In 1983 Special Agent Jameson Arkeley was the sole survivor of a blitz that ended in the death of the last vampire in the US. Twenty years later, during what starts out as a routine sobriety check stop, Pennsylvania State Trooper Laura Caxton discovers that vampires aren't quite as dead as she thought - teaming up with the phlegmatic and ruthless Arkeley, Caxton gets an education in the reality of vampire behaviour she would have been happier to miss, an education that leaves no aspect of her life unchanged.
13 Bullets is wholly unexpected, a vampire novel that really is diferent from the rest. While he obeys many of the conventions of the genre, in Wellington's world vampires are not seductive or charming, handsome or sexy. They're fast, frightening, cunning and evil. The pace of the novel is frenetic, the tension finely judged, and I kept telling myself I'd stop reading after just one chapter but finished the whole thing in only a few hours. Wellington also has a great voice, and has combined what could have been a somewhat standard story with literary writing, and some of his twists genuinely took me by surprise.
I saw his zombie trilogy at Heathrow last year but didn't realise it was the same author until I read the back blurb. And now I need to check out not only that but his other work, too. Watch this space - Alex
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