Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth: A bloody good read! (Excuse the pun....)

In Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth, we meet Zach Barrows, an ambitious go-getter working in the White House. He anticipates a career in public service and expects an almost meteoric rise. But his career takes an unexpected detour when he is assigned to assist a Secret Service agent, Nathaniel Cade. Like all Secret Service agents, Cade is sworn to protect the president. However Cade is unlike any other agent in the service. Bound by a blood oath 140 years ago, Cade is a vampire, who protects the president and the country from enemies far stranger and more dangerous than we could ever imagine.

I think I might just remember 2010 as the Year of the Zombie/Vampire. It seems like every other book I read features at least one of these creatures. And I’m not talking about wimpy sparkly baseball playing vampires. Nope, I keep finding books with the rip-your-heart out, drain-your-carotid, toss your carcass aside and proceed with the mayhem types. (In other words, the good old fashioned kind of scary kinds of vamps and zombies.)

Nathaniel Cade is pretty much along those lines, but like the wussy vamps in popular modern fiction (..you know what books I’m talking about), he has learned to control his baser instincts. But, since he is, after all the last line of defense for our President and the country against really Scary Things, he gets to come out and play frequently. And my, does he get the job done when he comes out to play!

Blood Oath is the beginning of a series, and it’s a bang-up start. Farnsworth mixes the supernatural with modern day conspiracy. Throw in a bit of jihad, a freakishly un-aging Nazi, some living dead Frankenstein monster types, and you’ve got quite a tale. I’ll be looking for the next book in the series, which I really hope the author is holed up somewhere writing. I’m not a patient woman…

(Review copy provided by Putnam)

My rating: