Sleeper in the Sand by Tom Holland
Book review
by Joe

 

Rating:

 

This is the fourth novel from the excellent Tom Holland. Less overtly vampiric than his original The Vampyre (Lord of the Undead in the US) or Deliver Us From Evil, but equally captivating and engrossing. As with his earlier work Holland has deftly mixed real historical figures and events with fictional characters and multiple reference to great works of literature.

In this case the story is told in three distinctive and interlocking phases : Howard Carter discovering the tomb of the boy-king Tut-an-Khamun in Egypt in the early 20th century and strange goings on in the Valley of the Kings by night ; The time of the pharaohs itself and the dark secret which the priests keep concerning them and their bloodline and finally a scholar in medieval Islamic times, sent on a quest by his evil Caliph who returns much changed and tells his story only by night, breaking of at sunrise like Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights.

Holland melds these intertwining strands together in fascinating fashion, using excellent historical detail and his captivating writing style to hold the reader bound to the page, reading through the night hours. And for those who wondered at the vampire restorative, mummiae, used by ailing vampires in earlier novels, the dreadful origin of this substance is finally revealed along with the pharaoh's dreadful gift and curse.