The Dracula Dossier: A Novel of Suspense [Hardcover]

James Reese (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 7, 2008

While taking an evening stroll through one of London's most impoverished districts, author Bram Stoker spies a maddeningly familiar figure hurrying through the shadows. Little does he know that, only a few steps away, a vicious killer has claimed his first victim, a local prostitute. The crime spree of the century has begun—and the hapless writer is the prime suspect. Now, to clear his name, Stoker must enlist the aid of illustrious friends—including Walt Whitman, the wildly popular novelist Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine, and Lady Jane Wilde, mother of the most notorious literary notable of the day—to hunt down the fiend who is taunting and terrorizing London and calling himself Jack the Ripper.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Reese's scrupulously imagined thriller, told largely through entries from a lost journal kept by the author of Dracula in 1888, Bram Stoker attends an indoctrination ceremony of the Order of the Golden Dawn, at the behest of Oscar Wilde's mum and a young William Butler Yeats. The ceremony goes horribly awry, resulting in one participant—Francis Tumblety, a patent medicine salesman newly arrived from America—becoming a vessel for the evil Egyptian god Set and applying his surgical skills to the slaughter of Whitechapel prostitutes in order to draw Stoker out for a supernatural showdown. Bestseller Reese (The Witchery) so perfectly pastiches the journal format that initially his story reads as dry and boringly as most private diaries. With Tumblety's malignant conversion, though, the novel turns into a rip-roaring penny dreadful that compels reading to the end. Dracula fans will appreciate the nods to well-known works that Stoker wrote supposedly following this confrontation. (Oct.)
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From School Library Journal

A package arrives at the desk of a young editor at a New York publishing house, purporting to be a collection of letters and journal entries belonging to Bram Stoker. The anonymous sender refers to it as the "Dracula Dossier." The papers disclose a series of events in Stoker's life that occurred when he worked for Irish theater-actor Henry Irving in 1888 and before he wrote his famous novel. The prolog promises a riveting tale of suspense, even horror, and there are moments of tension and fear, but for the most part the novel is dull and tedious. Readers familiar with the Dracula story will realize that Stoker is meeting people and having experiences that directly influenced his best-known work (Jack the Ripper plays a part). An interesting plot lurks somewhere within this story. Too bad Reese (The Witchery; The Book of Spirits; The Book of Shadows) could not bring it to fruition. Not recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/08.]—Patricia Altner, BiblioInfo.com, Columbia, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition edition (October 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061233544
• ISBN-13: 978-0061233548
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,272,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bizarre. Really bizarre (but in a good way)..., September 29, 2008

By 

K. Huff (Radnor, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Dracula Dossier: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

The Dracula Dossier is an interesting take on two of late-19th century England's most famous legends: the story of Jack the Ripper, and Bram Stoker's inspiration for Dracula (Enriched Classics Series). Set in 1888, Stoker works for his friend Henry Irving's theatre company, when he meets the eccentric American doctor Tumblety, who has an uncanny ability to walk through locked doors. One night, out for a walk, Stoker sees his new friend turn a corner. At the exact same moment, Jack the Ripper's crime spree begins, and Stoker becomes the primary suspect.

The story, like Dracula (which wouldn't be published until seven years after this book takes place and was "inspired" by the events that take place in The Dracula Dossier), is told through a series of letters, journal entries, and telegrams, from Stoker's point of view. Therefore, Reese's instant challenge is to authenticate Stoker's language patterns--which he manages to do quite well here. It really feels as though Stoker's the one doing the talking, which I thought was a particular strength of this novel. The book is also accompanied by a series of "editor's" footnotes, which at first I thought were going to be distracting. However, the further I got into the book, the less I was bothered by them.

The book is also highly bizarre, almost to the extreme. As in Dracula, there's no room for subtlety here. The Dracula Dossier is not for the faint of heart; there's quite a lot of blood (understatement, perhaps?). The novel opens with Bram walking through the streets of New York with a bloody knife in his pocket, for example. In another scene, Stoker visits the house of the Wildes (parents of Oscar, who makes an appearance here) in London, where Sir William has an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, complete with mummy, on display in his library.

The only criticism I have of it is that it seemed to take a little while to get going: the true story doesn't begin until about halfway through, though there's some great setup beforehand. I'm not sure how much of this novel is fact and how much of it is fiction, but the story is entertaining, certainly. This book is an interesting hybrid of stories: Jack the Ripper and Dracula, of course, and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White. So as you can imagine, this is a deliciously creepy book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What if Stroker based Dracula on Jack the Ripper?, September 29, 2008

By 

Rebecca Sacks (New Mexico, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dracula Dossier: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

'The Dracula Dossier' is a new twist on the identity of the serial killer Jack the Ripper. The book is primarily a collection of journal entries and newspaper clippings by Bram Stroker, the author of 'Dracula'. Stroker is known to have once crossed paths with Dr. Francis J. Tumblety, the main suspect in the Ripper murders. James Reese takes the idea to a whole new level and expands on the view of Jack the Ripper as inhuman. Tumblety's character is very dark and horrific, Stroker and his allies are engaging characters, as are their attempts to stop 'Jack the Ripper'. The book does include a large number of footnotes on most pages, but in my experience they never distracted from the story, in fact, they could be helpful in giving more detail about the events or culture of the time. Also, there were thankfully only a few detailed descriptions of the Ripper victims, and they just add to the dark nature of the book. 'The Dracula Dossier' is separated into three main parts, the Day, the Night, and the Night Within the Night. This is fitting because the book gives a feeling of never ending darkness at times.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If Bram Stoker had written a Jack The Ripper novel..., October 2, 2008

By 

Neal C. Reynolds (Indianapolis, Indiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Dracula Dossier: A Novel of Suspense (Hardcover)

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I deliberated before giving this a five rather than four star rating, but I feel this is an absolute must read for certain readers, those who have read and enjoyed Mary Shelly's FRANKENSTEIN, Bram Stoker's DRACULA, novels by Wilkie Collins and Sheridan Le Fanu. This of course is also must reading for serious readers of any literature dealing with Jack The Ripper.I admit that I did find the first 63 pages very laborious reading, especially since I carefully read the "editor's" footnotes. However, I found the effort quite worthwhile as I became acquainted with principle characters, all of whom are authentic historical personages. Besides Stoker, there are Lady Jane Wilde (oscar Wilde's mother), Thomas Henry Hall Caine (a writer who was a far more successful and popular novelist than Stoker during the late 19th century but now totally and with good reason forgotten), Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, and Constance Wilde.In the second section, we also meet most notably Dr. Francis Tumblety who remains one of the primary persons suspected of the infamous and heinous slayings. The latter half of the book includes Inspector Frederick Abberline who, as Jack The Ripper devotees realize, has been portrayed on the screen by the likes of Michael Caine and Johnny Depp. Also prominent in the book is the secret society, The Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn, an authentic group which is still in existence.The story itself is quite engrossing as it progresses through three stages: the introductory background, the growing menace, and the very chilling and explicit supernatural horror of the latter half. The narrative develops from its very gentile yet colorful portrait of 19th century English society into graphic and gross descriptions of the crimes and isn't recommended for timid readers with sensitive digestion.Again, this is very rewarding reading for those who love 19th century gothic literature, but will likely bore those who haven't progressed beyond contemporary horror literature such as Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and recent graphic novels.