The Fifth House of the Heart
-
- $13.99
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
Filled with characters as menacing as they are memorable, this chilling twist on vampire fiction packs a punch in the bestselling tradition of ’Salem’s Lot by Stephen King.
Asmodeus “Sax” Saxon-Tang, a vainglorious and well-established antiques dealer, has made a fortune over many years by globetrotting for the finest lost objects in the world. Only Sax knows the true secret to his success: at certain points of his life, he’s killed vampires for their priceless hoards of treasure.
But now Sax’s past actions are quite literally coming back to haunt him, and the lives of those he holds most dear are in mortal danger. To counter this unnatural threat, and with the blessing of the Holy Roman Church, a cowardly but cunning Sax must travel across Europe in pursuit of incalculable evil—and immeasurable wealth—with a ragtag team of mercenaries and vampire killers to hunt a terrifying, ageless monster…one who is hunting Sax in turn.
From author Ben Tripp, whose first horror novel Rise Again “raises the stakes so high that the book becomes nearly impossible to put down” (Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother), The Fifth House of the Heart is a powerful story that will haunt you long after its final pages.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tripp (The Accidental Highwayman) melds the modern vampire myth with comic mystery and detective fiction in this intriguing and intelligent horror novel. Asmodeus "Sax" Saxon-Tang, an aging and immensely wealthy procurer of antiques, has a secret: his astonishing success has come from looting the hoards of vampires, ancient shapeshifting predators who kill with cunning and ruthlessness. When Sax learns of a dangerous unknown vampire attempting to rebuild her own trove, he realizes he's been marked for death and sets off on a globe-trotting hunt to kill the beast and reclaim her treasure. Tripp's crotchety, cowardly protagonist, reminiscent of Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy, is instantly appealing and provides a fascinating viewpoint for the novel's diverse cast of vampire hunters. The story is exhaustively researched and the prose is rife with dry wit, all the funnier for scholars of history but easily accessible to others. Though sometimes a touch slow in between action scenes, this deep and terrifying vampire story is as nuanced as it is thrilling.