Vlad the Undead

Lucia, a young Danish medical student, receives an unusual inheritance from her grandfather -- a sheaf of old crumbling papers. During her summer vacation, in the isolation of a dark apartment in Copenhagen, she realizes these are no ordinary documents. The manuscript tells the story of a Romanian sea captain found half-dead and stranded on his ship, the Demeter, off the coast of England in 1894. Before dying, the captain dictates his bizarre story to Lucia's great-grandfather, the captain's doctor. The doctor learns that during its last trip from the Black Sea to England, the ship had been plagued by disappearances. It soon becomes clear that one of the ship's passengers was the monster of the stories the captain had heard as a child. Vlad Dracula was a vampire who had used the Demeter to carry himself and his evil cargo to the Western world. Written as a series of manuscripts, letters, and diary entries, Vlad the Undead brings to life the brilliant, ambitious, and ruthless prince of 15th-century Romania and a contemporary young woman's fascination with him.