Saturday, June 1, 2013

Book Review: I Travel By Night by Robert McCammon

I Travel by Night by Robert McCammon

This is a fantastic short novel. In McCammon terms 149 pages is a short story, the man who carried 800 never dragging pages of Swan Song returns to horror with this neat 19th century vampire tale. Did McCammon ever leave horror? The Five his rock and Roll thriller has true moments of horror as did his period murder mystery novels Speaks The Nightbird and Queen of Bedlam certainly had very dark moments. This however is true supernatural monster tale mixed with a southern gothic western.

Trevor Lawson is a soldier who should have died on a civil war battlefield. It wasn't the army of the north that killed him. It was vampires traveling under the banner of a group called the dark society. Lawson is an adventurer, who fixes problems using his supernatural powers. He has a card that provides the book's title.

The story starts when a father hires Lawson to get his kidnapped daughter back. The kidnapper's suggest that they will only take the ransom from him. Lawson knows this is trap set by the vampires. He has been killing his own kind, chasing the vampire that turned him. You see the rumor is that the only cure is taking the vampire that turned him.

This is a great little novella. McCammon is one of my favorite writers, he seems to be holding back. It is a rare, rare thing when I review a book and save something to the effect of "there could have been twice as much book."

There are many elements of a long epic novel and even more that could be used to build a series. Western horror adventure tales. Do it McCammon I am sure you had fun so how about you write about four more of these please!

Bottom line McCammon and horror fans...Pick this book up to read it is good fun.

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