A Dangerous Climate »

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is best known as the author of the Saint Germain novels, including Dark of the Sun, A Feast in Exile, Night Blooming, Midnight Harvest, and the classic Hotel Transylvania. A Grand Master at the World Horror Convention and an International Horror Guild Living Legend, Yarbro lives in Berkeley, California.

The vampire Count Saint-Germain, disguised as a missing Hungarian nobleman, is on a spy mission in the heart of Czarist Russia. Almost by the power of his will alone, it seems, Peter the Great is wrestling the city that will one day be St. Petersburg out of swampland. Representatives of the heads of all European states are living in tiny, frigid, wooden homes as they jockey for power and influence over the Czar. When a man shows up claiming to be the Count Saint-Germain, the vampire must figure out how to protect his title and wealth without revealing either his true identity or his True Nature.

Publishers Weekly

Rich with historical detail and intrigue, Yarbro's 21st Count Saint-Germain novel (after 2007's Borne in Blood) unfolds in 18th-century Russia at the height of Peter the Great's effort to wrest St. Petersburg from the swamps and spearhead the modernizing of his nation. Benevolent vampire Saint-Germain plays both sides, contributing engineering suggestions to the czar's efforts and intelligence reports to the Polish monarchy. As usual, several difficulties threaten to expose his secret identity, and he battles ignorant and superstitious opposition to his enlightened teaching and doctoring skills. Though sluggishly paced in spots and minimally supernatural, this meticulously researched entry deftly displays Yarbro's ambitions to use her vampire hero as a lens to focus on the best and worst of human behavior throughout history. (Oct.)

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