Read for the Vampire Reading Challenge.
This is the third book of Tanya Huff’s books about ex-cop Vicki Nelson, and her plunge into the supernatural world hidden in Toronto. The story begins when the Egyptology department of the Royal Ontario Museum manages to acquire an unopened sarcophagus. It turns out that the mummy enclosed within was a priest of one of the minor gods, and had been trapped there when his priesthood had gotten a bit uppity and tried to take more power during the 18th Dynasty. He was trapped in the sarcophagus alive. Naturally, when he’s let out, he wants his power back.
And so we find Vicki, her ex-partner Mike Celluci, and vampire Henry Fitzroy trying to figure out what exactly is going on in Toronto. It’s a great little story, with a nice take on mummies. The ending is quick, and bloody.
This is the first of these books that I’ve read since seeing the tv show based on the series, and it helped me put my finger on why it took me a little while to warm to Henry on tv. On the page, Henry comes across as an older man, which makes perfect sense, considering he’s 450 or so years old. And while it’s mentioned a number of times that he was turned when he was seventeen, and would therefore appear to be that age, my mental image of him pegged him as older. So seeing him played by a young actor on tv jarred against my mental image. I got over it, because it certainly made sense (and frankly, Kyle Schmid’s not bad to look at), but reading his character again has definitely crystallized why I had a bit of a transition to make when seeing Henry in a visual medium.