Harriet Klausner's Review Archive
Someone puts a spell over everyone in the apartment and when Dracula awakens, Dickon is gone, the human is dead, Andy is dazed and an Egyptian statue is smashed. The next day Sobeck, a being once worshipped by the Egyptians as a God, confronts Matthew Maule. He wants the Philosopher's Stone, a magical artifact hidden in one of six small statues smuggled into the country. Dracula declines to help but Andy becomes involved when Dickon asks his dead partner's granddaughter Dolly to assist him. Andy's father and Uncle Matt search for the Philosopher's Stone while trying to keep Andy and Dolly out of danger. Thy also hope to send Sobeck back where he belongs.
It's been six long years since Fred Saberhagen has written a Dracula book but the wait was well worth it. His eighth installment in this series is imaginative, colorful and sometimes even quirky. Dickon is comic relief as a millennium old vampire afraid of his own shadow. The race for the Philosopher's Stone is filled with action and adventure as the protagonists keep running head long into villains coveting the same artifact.