A Zombie Plague for Vampires

The Strain by Guillermo del Torro and Chuck Hogan

Horror

What an incredible opening--an airplane lands, the shades are pulled down, and communication is lost.  Fearing terrorists, the police and bomb squad are called in.  What they find is much worse than their worst thoughts.  Everyone on board is dead, except for four people who are dying.  It's a race to figure out what killed the others and decide if this thing is infectious.

Eph Goodweather is head of the CDC and gets the call (I know I'm going to love a book when the CDC is in it.  I love it when they get involved.  The CDC should totally have their own series on TV.  That stuff will scare anybody).  He has no idea what's going on, but he knows it isn't good.  (Is it ever good when the CDC gets called in?)  Abraham Setrakian has been awaiting this moment his whole life.  He learned the stories of darkness and evil at his mother's knee. 

I really liked this book.  My favorite parts involved the character of Eph, a captivating man with a complicated past that gets in the way of his job.  The plot--a vampire plague and a scientist racing to discover and stop it--really had me hooked.  It's not exactly a unique vampire story, but if you're really into the genre, it's certainly worth a read.  There's definitely enough meat in it (no pun intended) to carry over into the next book.  This is first in a series so the action won't end on the last page.  The book was published just a few years ago, but it has a very 1980's vibe to it, which isn't a bad thing.  I like it when characters muddle around in the dark without the benefit of technology giving them an automatic answer.  Plus, the vampire are very bad-ass, which is the best kind.