The Carpathian Assignment: The True History of the Apprehension and Death of Dracula Vlad Tepes, Count and Voivode of the Principality of Transylvania

Wagar effectively introduces pioneering sexual pathology expert Richard, Baron von Krafft-Ebing into the Dracula story, in what’s billed as an unabridged version of Bram Stoker’s tale. In 1896, Kalvary Istvan—recently retired from the Austrian army, depressed, and at loose ends—gets a new lease on life when he’s appointed the chief of police of Transylvania’s Bistritz district. On taking up his new post, Istvan is alarmed to learn that his predecessor has disappeared without trace and that the authorities suspect a serial killer, who has slaughtered on a massive scale, is at work in the region. Word of Istvan’s investigation reaches Vienna, where Krafft-Ebing has partnered with Sigmund Freud on a government grant to apply their breakthroughs into the human mind to studying criminal behavior. Readers looking for a different angle on a classic will be rewarded. (BookLife)