The Strain (Strain Trilogy #1) Book

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . .

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city—a city that includes his wife and son—before it is too late.

Publishers Weekly

An ancient vampire is brought into New York by an immortality-seeking financier and infests the city with bloodthirsty, light-shunning revenants. Can two doctors, an elderly folklore professor, an exterminator and a gang member stem the monstrous tide? The delightfully rumbling voice of Ron Perlman, who has appeared in several of Del Toro's films, does the honors. The listener may quibble with his inconsistent pronunciation of the character name “Ephraim,” but on the whole, Perlman's narration and dialogue are creditable, particularly his convincing, Eastern European–accented portrayal of Professor Setrakian. Del Toro and Hogan favor a discursive style, and their lengthy descriptions and the repetitive nature of many of the vampire attacks mean that the story is somewhat slow to gather steam, but it does get there in the end. A Morrow hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 13). (June)