Vlad the Impaler: In search of the real Dracula by M.J. TrowMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
When this book is good, it’s very good. M.J. Trow’s prose is engaging, and the subject of course is fascinating. As long as the subject is Vlad the Impaler, that is. The first third of the book is devoted to vampires, which I found more than a little tedious (at least in part because I already knew almost all of it). The text occasionally hits snags, such as strange digressions (applying Chinese phrenology to a portrait?) and unfathomable barrages of names of people with little relevance to the narrative. Overall, however, this is a good attempt to reach into the murky depths of biased historical accounts and retrieve some sense of who Vlat Tepes was as a person, a prince and a monster.
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