Vampire Count Saint-Germain turns up in 16th-century Peru in this latest installment (after Darker Jewels) in a series that began with Hotel Transylvania in 1978. Although Saint-Germain hopes to live quietly in this land where a monolithic Church is systematically destroying the remnants of Inca culture, his eccentric interests immediately mark him as an outsider. The local clergy believe his medical knowledge is evidence of witchcraft; those rumors are inflamed when Saint-Germain befriends a woman said to be the last of a once-powerful family of Inca priests and nobles.

Yarbro's series is chock full of well-researched historical details that adds to her historical fiction of the Saint Germain series and I relish the detailed setting and the tangled plottings of the churchmen and secular agents whose mortal lives brush against that of the immortal undead. I have yet to be dissatisfied with this series. ( )