Book Review: 13 Bullets: a Vampire Tale

Recently finished the book 13 Bullets: a Vampire Tale .

By all means this is a pulp fiction, and in no way a literary masterpiece. But it was a fun read.

Story opens up with a federal agent taking out a nest of vampires. These vampires are monstrous, like in 30 Days of Night. White skin, nearly invulnerable when filled with human blood and rows of sharp teeth like a shark.

Jump forward 20 years without vampire activity in America, and a state trooper in Pennsylvania comes across a "Faceless One" (not unlike a ghoul, but instead of a living person empowered by vitae, instead a risen victim of the vampire.)

Enter the now U.S. Marshal who is the only known American to have killed a vampire. He recruits the Trooper as they track down these newly turned vampires.

The vampires in this book have an interesting method of turning others into vampires, but other than that they are pretty typical of the genre. They have to feed on blood, and the older the get the more blood is required to sustain them. They are incapable of feeding without killing, they rend their victims apart and drink from the exposed arteries.

They can hypnotize humans, and they raise the dead to do their bidding. The "Faceless Ones" are raised corpses that do the bidding of their master, and named so because in the act of resurrecting them, they claw their own faces off. And they are only good for a couple weeks before they completely rot.

All in all, a good blend of traditional vampirism and unique traits.

The book itself is paced like a made for tv movie or miniseries. Goes back and forth from gruesome violence and action to plot and character development.