Traveling with the Dead (Barbara Hambly)

This sequel to Those Who Hunt the Night, one of my favorite vampire novels, is not quite as good as the first, but still good. It is set in the early 1900s, and features the same main characters: James Asher, former spy turned Oxford professor; his wife Lydia, brave medical researcher in a man's world; and Don Simon Ysidro, ancient vampire they have to work with. Hambly is a wonder at creating the ambiance of Paris and Vienna and Constantinople in historical realism, and evokes soul-numbing horror that storms the gates of melodrama without a qualm. She also raises the moral questions many such stories overlook. Why is one vampire a "good" vampire and another not, when they both must feed on the death of humans to survive? The added ingredient that made the first novel better is that it had a splendidly unexpected but completely fitting solution to the central mystery, whereas this one did not click quite so well. Still, I enjoyed it and was eager to find out what happened next. There are others in this series, and I will certainly read them, too.