Dracula Cha Cha Cha {with Aquarius}

Outrageously good third novel in Kim Newman's alternate world Anno Dracula series, where Dracula won and vampires were outed. After Victorian London and the trenches of France, this outing takes place in the bustling, lively, swinging city of Rome, 1959. Kate Reed arrives to see the aged and infirm Charles Beauregard one last time, only to find herself witness to the brutal murder of two vampire elders. Genevieve is also in Rome, caring for Charles, and Dracula himself is nearby, living out the years of his exile in the Castle Otranto, but engaged to be married, thus possibly signalling his impending reemergence onto the world stage. Keeping an eye on things for British intelligence is the suave, deadly, if rather shallow, newborn show more agent, Hamish Bond. Running Dracula's household is one Penny Churchward, an old friend of Kate and Charles, and under her spell is the American, Tom Ripley.
Faces familiar and unfamiliar, fictional and real, human and vampire jostle in the crowded streets and scenes and parties. The Crimson Executioner cuts a flamboyantly bloody swathe through more vampire elders, rival powers stalk each other and jockey for position, but who is behind the killings? And what does Dracula intend when his dynasty is joined to another?
I love this stuff, this clever, multi-referential, sharply written, bloody confection that mixes murder and comedy and spies and stars, that looks at death and life and undeath and unlife and tries to make some sense of it all, or at least come to terms with what little sense there is. Included in this edition is the novella Aquarius, a tale of murder and revolt and a wide variety of coppers and plods set in swinging London, 1968, featuring Kate and her investigations on the behalf of the Diogenes Club into the murder by a vampire, of a young woman, as the dark tides and passions of the sixties' underbelly roll towards a violent explosion.
If I have a criticism of this volume, it's the annotations, which I enjoy. Only annotations for Cha Cha Cha are included, and even they feel a little sparse. I could have done with a run-down on some of the bit players in Aquarius. It doesn't detract from the novel or the novella, but it would have added to them, for me, anyway.

Re(listened) 2022. I had somehow gotten it into my head that Clark Kent was the Crimson Executioner, and that Newman had turned Superman into a puppeted giallo serial-killer. Alas, not the case. show less

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3078487.html

I had not read any of the previous books in this series, an alternate history in which vampires became visible in society in the late nineteenth century when Count Dracula married Queen Victoria, and history runs more or less along the same course as we know, except with added vampires. The first part of the book is a novel, Dracula Cha Cha Cha, set in Rome in 1959, and the second a novella, Aquarius, set in swinging London in 1968. Both feature vampire detective Kate Reed as a central character, and I suspect that both are pretty dependent on the events of earlier books in the series to the extent that I found it rather hard to get into. There are endnotes for Dracula Cha Cha Cha explaining show more all the cultural references (and there are a lot of them, including an undead Scottish spy called Hamish Bond). I actually enjoyed Aquarius a bit more, as I felt that Newman was focusing less on details of the setting and a bit more on plot. There are interesting characters in both.

One point that occurred to me: it's interesting how often alternate histories are actually detective novels. I guess it's a convenient device to allow the central character to find out more about their own universe and allow us to accompany them on the journey.

Anyway, I think I would have liked this more if I was more into vampire fiction, and if I had read the earlier novels in the series (there is nothing on the cover to indicate that this is not a standalone book). show less

A collection of two stories, set in the 1950's & one in the 1970's. They centre on continuation of the world & mythos that was first developed in Anno Dracula & The Bloody Red Baron. Some of the same characters feature. Once again, Newman packs in the outré culture references, film references, & literary references to age appropriate analogies. The plotting takes some time to get moving, & one does feel as though Newman is milking this. Worth putting in some effort but for me, this neither work as an alternative history, thriller, nor crime novel. I was always trying hard to remember the various connections between characters. I wouldn't read to again, & towards the end, felt that it was over long.

Passes the time but the stories get too bogged down in the constant pop culture referencing in every other paragraph .

Eh. Good, but dragged in places. Also there were a number of places where the font failed in the printing, leaving a random accented letter nothing more than a box.