Jacob Thomson Official Website

Thorough, committed research and descriptive scenes of sex and murder propel this novel to the top of my favorites list. The Alukam is a book I recommend to all lovers of murder/mystery. (Carrie White, eBook Reviews Weekly)

This is an excellent police procedural novel [with] a cunning, centuries old serial killer. [This] book will certainly satisfy the lovers of vampire fiction, adding an entirely new chapter to an already huge vampire mythology, and at the same time will intrigue the mystery lovers with its realistic approach. (Linda Suzane, MidnightBlood.com)

Jacob Thomson's first novel, The Alukam, isn't always easy to classify. In style, the novel is a police procedural, for the most part following the course of an investigation into a serial murderer terrorizing a Florida resort community. Detective Sergeant David Schneider, of the Benjamin County Sheriff's Office, is a widower, raising a teenaged daughter by himself. Because he is also an Orthodox Jew, living in a community where the Orthodox community is so small that its members can find themselves unable to conduct complete services if someone goes away on vacation, he is faced with additional conflicts. The Sheriff is Jewish, but also Reform, intermarried, and mostly assimilated, and has little patience with a detective who takes off on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays.

And the murders are bizarre, to say the least. The bodies of several beautiful young women have been found on Port Morrow Beach, dressed only in skimpy bikinis, with all of the blood drained from their bodies. The loss of blood, and the presence of what appear to be teeth marks on the victims' throats, have led the local paper to dub the crimes "The Vampire Murders."

But what is more bizarre is that the killer is a real vampire, and not the lunatic the cops are looking for. Born in 17th Century Poland, Isaac Nathanson has been surviving on the blood of his victims since his suicide in 1684. Condemned to perpetual wakefulness, he can find rest in his coffin only on the Jewish Sabbath, when his rest provides him a glimpse of the heavenly realm denied him as punishment for his defiance of God. He cannot find oblivion in the stake, or by standing out in the sun. Christian religious objects don't bother him in the least, and Jewish religious objects are only mildly annoying. Only special prayers can permanently lay him to rest, and the rabbi who would know those prayers—or even recognize that they would be needed—is a rare creature indeed.

The Alukam may well be the best vampire novel written in the last half century. It is certainly the most unique.

Read the Prologue and Chapter One
Buy The Alukam at Barnes&Noble.com
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