Merrick

'The Vampire Armand' finished with a tantalising moment - the Vampire Lestat rising from the dead in present-day New Orleans to walk again among Anne Rice's unforgettable undead. Now Lestat lives again but in a twilight world of music and memory.

In this dazzling new volume of the Vampire Chronicles it is Lestat's charismatic friend and coeval Louis de Pointe du Lac (originating in eighteenth-century France and 'Interview With A Vampire' and now at home in present-day New Orleans) who takes centre stage, tortured by the memory of the child vampire Claudia, whom he loved and lost. With the help of David Talbot, ultimate fixer from the secret Talamasca organisation, Louis appeals to Merrick, the beautiful mixed-race daughter of the New Orleans Mayfair clan - from the wrong side of the tracks. To save Louis' sanity, Merrick must use her black witchcraft to call up the ghost of Claudia - however dangerous this may be. But there are other spirits who will not lie still, and her search takes her close to the edge, through blood and terror, voodoo and violence.

Sweeping from New Orleans to the Brazilian jungle, this is vampire literature at its most thrilling, seductive and superb.