The President's Vampire [Hardcover]

Christopher Farnsworth (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 28, 2011

The ultimate secret. The ultimate agent. Nathaniel Cade returns.

For 140 years, Nathaniel Cade has been the President's Vampire, sworn to protect and serve his country. Cade's existence is the most closely guarded of White House secrets: a superhuman covert agent who is the last line of defense against nightmare scenarios that ordinary citizens only dream of.

When a new outbreak of an ancient evil-one that he has seen before- comes to light, Cade and his human handler, Zach Barrows, must track down its source. To "protect and serve" often means settling old scores and confronting new betrayals . . . as only a centuries-old predator can.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Christopher Farnsworth on The President's Vampire

There are probably some people who wonder why I decided the world needed another vampire novel, let alone one about a bloodsucker who works for the president.

But to me, changing the War on Terror to the War on Horror didn’t seem like that much of a leap.

My vampire Nathaniel Cade even has his birth in U.S. history. I got the idea when reading a weird factoid about a sailor pardoned by President Andrew Johnson after being accused of killing two men and drinking their blood. I wondered: What would a man sitting in the Oval Office do with a vampire?

Then it hit me. That was the wrong question. The right question is: What wouldn’t the president do with a vampire?

Since 9/11, it seems that the United States has struggled with one nightmare after another. There’s a feeling that the ground isn’t stable under our feet; that it might crumble at any moment and the graves will open and all kinds of nasty, hungry things will spring out.

You can see how we’re handling it in our hunger for stories of zombies and vampires and conspiracies. John Connolly’s Charlie Parker is a detective constantly fighting ghosts and demons, both symbolic and literal. Jonathan Maberry pits soldiers against what can only be called mad science; F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack is a street-level fixer forced to confront undying evil. Meanwhile, Justin Cronin and Max Brooks have imagined worlds that show us what happens when humanity loses to horror.

This is where Nathaniel Cade comes in. He’s our front line and last resort in this war. He makes sure the nightmares never infect the brightly lit world of the American dream. He’s able to fight terror with terror.

There are two sayings that constantly go through my head when I’m writing Cade. The first is the old aphorism from Nietzsche: “Whoever fights monsters must take care not to become a monster himself.” The second I read in Shibumi, one of my favorite books of all time: “Who does the harsh things? He who can.”

Cade has already lost his humanity. He’s never going to get it back. So he knows the cost if he fails; he knows how easy it would be to slip into the future as it exists in The Passage. But he’s able to go into the shadows and survive precisely because he isn’t human. The shadows are where he belongs now.

To paraphrase Franklin D. Roosevelt, Cade might be a monster, but he’s our monster. And in a world filled with terror and darkness, it’s somehow comforting to think that we’ve got something with teeth on our side.

Review

"Thrilling... Even Lovecraftian monsters pale in the context of human terrorism... Events build to a cinematic showdown... The conclusion will leave the reader breathless and wondering what horrors the future holds." --Publishers Weekly

There are plenty of chills and thrills... VERDICT: Readers who enjoy adventure with a compelling cast of characters will enjoy this clever, witty sequel to Blood Oath. --Patricia Altner, Library Journal

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (April 28, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780399157394
• ISBN-13: 978-0399157394
• ASIN: 0399157395
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (74 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #217,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christopher Farnsworth is a former journalist and screenwriter. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughters. You can find out more at www.christopherfarnsworth.com and www.presidentsvampire.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Twisty political thriller...with vampires? Yes, please. April 28, 2011

By L. Jenkins

Format:Hardcover

I loved Blood Oath, the first book in this series (and recommended reading), but I could. not. put. The President's Vampire. down. If you enjoyed Blood Oath, TPV is a slam dunk/victory lap. And if you're jumping into the series here, you'll have an excellent time and will catch up quick.

Cade, our titular and uber top secret vampire, is a very scary and inhuman piece of work. But, my fellow Americans, he is *our* very scary and inhuman piece of work: fighting the supernatural bad guys and all manner of evildoers (including a bittersweet-yet-enjoyable gory demise for Osama Bin Laden which will have to tide me over for the time being). Reading Cade's sections of the book is a lot of fun, as he pretty beyond "good and bad" and just channels his inner demonic Jason Bourne. But...Cade was once human, and he possesses honor and some dim recollection of emotions, elevating the character beyond a simple badass, one-note hero.

The supporting cast is great, especially Cade's government-appointed "handler," Zach. Zach is very human: charming yet emotionally isolated, too smart for his own good, and perhaps considering himself a little too untouchable with the world's best bodyguard keeping an eye on him. I was Team Cade in Blood Oath but 100% Team Zach in TPV...the character has really grown and come into his own.

I love comic books, monster movies, vampires (gothic to Twilighty), twisty political thrillers, and just plain fun reads. TPV delivers on all levels. A great vacation/flying read when you want to lose yourself for a few uninterrupted hours...don't start this book at 10 at night as I did! Two thumbs up.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Good mystery, a brilliant take on the vampire and stellar writing April 28, 2011

By C. Mueller VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

(This review was originally posted at VampireBookClub.net)

Ladies and gents, The President's Vampire is not your standard vampire fare.

Chris Farnsworth gives us the supernatural equivalent to 24 with vampire Nathaniel Cade as our Jack Bauer.

Long ago Cade swore a blood oath to protect the President of the United States and the country. He works as black ops taking care of the nasties that come from the Other Side. For the last century he's been working to exterminate reptilian hybrids -- what his handler Zach calls Snakeheads. But they keep changing and now they're showing up in the middle of enemy territory. Cade arrives and slaughters, but someone is pulling the strings now. Probably someone within The Shadow Company (a.k.a. the ultimate bad Men in Black).

Vampire Cade is very clearly not human. Everyone he encounters shies away, because there is an instinctual pull away from predators. And that's truly what Cade is: a predator who sees others as either threats or prey. Despite this, he still willingly entered the oath and is incredibly loyal. Just, you know, super scary simultaneously. You want him on your side. His handler Zach is still adjusting to working with the living dead, but Cade keeps saving his life and the work needs to be done.

We aren't about to spoil the plot on this one. It's a thriller and you need to experience each event as it unravels. But expect that The Shadow Company has men everywhere and being aware of the infiltration isn't always enough. Big plans have been set into action, and now Cade has to stop them to save not just the U.S., but humanity.

All of Farnsworth's writing is precise, but it's particularly extraordinary during action sequences from Cade's point-of-view. The sharp, almost staccato prose matches the lightning-fast moments and detachment of the otherworldly assassin.

It was easy to get swept up into the fast-paced story of espionage and a decades-long mission coming to a head. If you appreciate a good mystery, a brilliant take on the vampire and stellar writing, The President's Vampire is a must.

Note: The first novel in this series is Blood Oath, but Farnsworth has crafted The President's Vampire in a way that you can enjoy it without having read the prior novel.

Sexual content: One brief sex scene

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I had hoped for with the second novel. April 30, 2011

By J. Lesley TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This second story in the secret life of the vampire who guards the interests of the President of the United States simply left me standing in the dust by the side of the road. It was not what I had hoped to find in the next novel of the series. Blood Oath, the debut book, appealed to me with it's quirky weirdness that absolutely, positively could not be true. Could it? No, absolutely not, but it was fun to read and I enjoyed the chances the author took to make his novel stand out among so many fantasy look-alikes. Just the fact of making me entertain the thought that it MIGHT be true was a wonderful accomplishment by the author. Then along came The President's Vampire and for me it turned into a comic book. I can even imagine the balloons with "BIFF", "POW", "SQUISH", and even "AAARG" littered across the pages. I'm not a comic book fan so when I started having those feelings about this book I knew I was in trouble.

Even the whisper of Cade's existence is supposed to be top secret. Zach Barrows has his entire life turned upside down when his political career comes to an end and he is made the handler of the President's vampire. In this story the secret appears to have infiltrated so much of the Washington, D. C. political culture it seemed as if everyone in town knew about Cade and had simply decided not to talk about it. The Secret Company is a group which has long been formed to take down the government from the inside out and they use a defense contractor, Archer/Andrews which already has a dark and shadowy reputation, to carry out their clandestine activities. There is a virus being perfected which instantly turns people into, as Zach calls them, Snakeheads. That's not quite an accurate description, but it is mentally evocative. In order to utilize this 'secret weapon' there is a great deal of guts and gore in this novel. Some of that was needed for illustrating how the mutated virus worked, but there was so much it far exceeded my comfort level.

Each chapter of the book begins with back story concerning incidents in U. S. history which touched on the use made of Cade or happenings of an unexplained nature. This feature detracted from the narrative for me because it interrupted the flow of the story and almost always, perhaps even every time, signaled that a different point of view was now going to be presented. For me it was very distracting. A word here to Kindle readers - these back story segments will be shown very clearly in the print version of this novel. With the Kindle I read several of them and was thoroughly confused by what was going on. I finally realized that the font size I was utilizing was keeping me from seeing that these opening segments of chapters were back story, not a continuation of the present story. I then adjusted my font size to the smallest I was comfortable with and could see the additional information segments as separate portions on the page. It helped me tremendously.

Personally, this book did not do very much for me at all, but I am still impressed by the author's writing ability and his imagination.