Book Review: True Vampires : Blood-Sucking Killers Past and Present

Reviewed By: Gina Metz - RAM

True Vampires : Blood-Sucking Killers Past and Present     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Sondra London
Class/Genre:   Non-Fiction   True Crime
Manuscript: 407pp

True Vampires is supposed to be about true crimes involving aspects of vampirism. If the author wrote this book with a target market of your average reader, I believe she has sadly missed her mark.

It begins with a long introduction in which Ms. London uses numerous terms that are not in an average reader’s vocabulary with no definitions given. I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent and felt as though I should be sitting with an encyclopedia next to me to try to figure out what she was talking about. Her ideas seemed to flit from one thing to another. I almost stopped reading at this point.

Once you finally get past the introduction and into the actual stories of the crimes, I found it quite fascinating reading. Please note that it is definitely not for the squeamish as it contains quite a few gory details. I also did not understand how Ms. London thought many of these stories had anything to do with vampirism. She sites cases of people who have resorted to cannibalism due to starvation, which I fail to see how they would fall into the category of vampires.

With the lengthy introduction, one would assume there would be some conclusions at the end, however the book just abruptly stops. Overall it could have been a much better read with either more definitions given or the use of terms that would be more familiar to your average reader and a good deal more organization.

Gina Metz - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Gina Metz - RAM

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