Dracula Vs. Hitler, a taut, fun page-turner that defies expectations

Scoff if you will. I did too when I first read the title of the book Dracula Vs. Hitler. It’s a concept and title so base and cheesy on the surface that you expect it to be a lost screenplay for a Roger Corman film. Dracula Vs. Hitler is a perfect example of the old cliché, “don’t judge a book by its cover”.  From the Iron Eagle that represents the Third Reich to the upside down Vampire Bat, complete with the full moon separating them; this is a book whose imagery sets audiences up for a pulp horror version of Death wish. Instead it delivers an intelligent book with classical hooks that have more in common with great WWII dramas and its original source material than the cheesy homage that you’d expect.

The premise of the book is the classic paradox’s of mashing together two known entities that didn’t exist in the same timeline. The fact that one of the subjects was a real person makes the fact that the book is a thrilling read even more remarkable. It manages to do this by using the specter of Hitler much more than the actual person.

Dracula Vs. Hitler starts out by setting up a series of manuscripts that were found. Author Patrick Sheane Duncan says that he was researching something in one of the vast warehouses in Washington D.C. when he stumbled across these old, leather-bound books from various sources. One could easily imagine such books falling out of a deteriorating box in one of these acre plus storage units a-la that final scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Cobbled together from these books are excerpts from the elder Van Helsing, various Nazi communiqués, Lucy Van Helsing, an unidentified diary (probably Hitler though) and J. Harker, an English spy. These snippets make up the chapters that add up to the entirety of the book. To help add historic authenticity each chapter has its own font, the diary is in cursive, the Nazi communiqués are block font and the rest of them are similar to Tahoma.

Thankfully the vast majority of the chapters are in Tahoma. Reading cursive for even four pages was tiring and difficult to follow. Luckily for readers the longest chapter with that font was maybe seven pages-and that was when they reached a key point in the book.

So how does Dracula rise from the dead? Well, it turns out that Professor Van Helsing, who first encountered the vampire is now an old man helping the locals resist the surging German occupation. After a particularly brutal encounter with the Nazis, as well as insight into their even crueler plans to come the doctor hatches a plan. He’s going to resurrect his old nemesis and enlist his assistance in helping the resistance protect the homeland.

Prince Vlad Dracula, for blood and country, in other words the enemy of my enemy-who can also leap 60 feet, hypnotize people, command animals, crush humans with his bare hands and move quicker than the blink of an eye.

“This is utterly ridiculous”, I said to my wife when I was about three-fourths done with the book. Dracula was walking around town with Lucy, the main protagonist, and they were having deep conversations about cultures, the way they behave and what’s happened in the years since Drac had been staked in the heart. Immediately after I said that to my wife I mentioned to her how remarkable it was that it took me until I was almost finished with Dracula Vs. Hitler to come back to reality and cease my suspension of disbelief.

My wife simply rolled her eyes at me as if to say, ‘were you not aware of the title of the book you’re reading’? My cessation of my suspension of disbelief was brief and before the page ended I was back in Brasov, rooting for the resistance and eager to see what happens next.

Dracula Vs. Hitler manages to have elements of classic horror, humor, war, as well as action, and be a really fun page-turner of a book for teens and older. The horror elements are much tamer than teens would read in a Stephen King book. There are a couple instances of romance, but it’s alluded to and kids will encounter more detailed descriptions of sex on an ABC Family (Freeform) show. Because the theme of this book is set in the early 40’s the vocabulary is large and might be too advanced for some kids. If your kids know the words incendiary, malicious, henceforth, manifest or predation then they’ll be able to read this book without any issue.

Think of Dracula Vs. Hitler as Force 10 From Navarone with a vampire. This is a fun read that will have you genre hopping in your head to imagine other classic monsters in different times. Now, after you realize how difficult it is to make such a book enjoyable-much less believable (due to the author’s research in WW II terminology, speech patterns and so forth) then will find yourself rewarded with a great beach book. This is one that you’ll find difficult to put down. Its rich, detailed language gives readers the feel that they’re in the Romanian mountains at the intersection of absurd history and loving every moment of it.

Dracula vs. Hitler is a glorious mash up of history and classic horror that sneaks up on you, far exceeds expectations and has some real bite to its words.