L.A. Screams

Mike Sullivan is a rookie cop in late nineteenth-century Los Angeles. There are only seventy officers on the squad, and they still ride horses on patrol. The city population reaches over one million, and crime increases with the growth; but Mike is a cop, ready to face any foe. Or so he believes. When the Adelaide docks at San Pedro and off-loads two bodies that weren't on the manifest the L.A. force is placed on alert. An old sailor tells Mike that the deaths were the work of a vampire who rounded the horn on this last voyage of the season. Mike is skeptical until the sailor pulls out a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula and suggests that Mike might find answers in there.  As Mike delves deeper into the mystery he is distracted: by his mother's serious illness and his love for Jennifer Fitzgerald, the woman he hopes to marry. But he must set all this aside. Having finished the book, Mike realizes that the old sailor is right: a vampire hunts the streets of Los Angeles. Conventional police work and his skill with his firearms will no longer be enough. But what will it take to get his fellow officers to believe and how will Mike protect those he loves from the horrors of night when L. A. Screams?

From the Inside Flap

Mike Sullivan is a rookie cop in late nineteenth-century Los Angeles. There are only seventy officers on the squad, and they still ride horses on patrol. The city population reaches over one million, and crime increases with the growth; but Mike is a cop, ready to face any foe. Or so he believes. When the Adelaide docks at San Pedro and off-loads two bodies that weren't on the manifest the L.A. force is placed on alert. An old sailor tells Mike that the deaths were the work of a vampire who rounded the horn on this last voyage of the season. Mike is skeptical until the sailor pulls out a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula and suggests that Mike might find answers in there. As Mike delves deeper into the mystery he is distracted: by his mother's serious illness and his love for Jennifer Fitzgerald, the woman he hopes to marry. But he must set all this aside. Having finished the book, Mike realizes that the old sailor is right: a vampire hunts the streets of Los Angeles. Conventional police work and his skill with his firearms will no longer be enough. But what will it take to get his fellow officers to believe and how will Mike protect those he loves from the horrors of night when L. A. Screams?

From the Back Cover

I told them everything, starting with a synopsis of the story Stoker hadwritten. ... When I ran out of things to say, I stopped talking.The only sound was the fire crackling in the fireplace. I was standingby the hearth, and I leaned against the mantle for support. The peace of theevening had been shattered. I should have kept my mouth shut. Hadn't Idecided that my mother didn't need to be worrying herself about this? I washer son, her only child, and I was a cop. I should have protected her from theugliness of my job. She read me like I'd read the book in my hands."Michael," she held out her hand, a firmness in her voice that I hadn'theard in a while. I crossed over to her, took her hand. She pulled me down untilI was sitting beside her. "Michael, this is not the sort of thing that you hidefrom those you love." She laid her hand on my lips as I started to protest. "Listento me, son. Most of what you see from day to day is just your work--the evil,malicious, and nonsensical things that people do to themselves and to each other.Normally we don't need to know what you know, hear about what you've spentthe day dealing with, unless it involves someone we know or is a story worthtelling. But this ... This ..." she paused, as much at a loss for words as the restof us. "This evil touches us all."

About the Author

Su Boddie is a native of Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from the University of Rochesterwith a bachelor's degree in science and worked with computers for twenty-eight years. She has lived in all U.S. time zones and now calls Salt Lake City home.

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