Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan - The Strain

They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come. In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country. In two months - the world.

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing....

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city - a city that includes his wife and son - before it is too late.

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I am an audiobook freak and listen to a lot of books but very rarely sit down to review one. With this one I am making an exemption because I believe it deserves a good review.
The book is narrated by Ron Perlman, who I've never listened to before, except on various movies. His deep voice however is gripping and very kept me listening for hours.
Besides the phenomenal, non romantic, dark vampire plot the book creates a sense of darkness the old vampire lover has been craving for a long time, at least since vampires have become humanized with way to much romantic novels lately.

So who searches for romantic is at the wrong place with this one. What you'll find is a haunting darkness you haven't encountered for a long time. I find it to be excellent and exciting.

This audiobook is the first installment of a planned trilogy in which at first a plane lands in New York. Its passengers, besides four survivors, are all dead without visible indications of why. CDC Dr. Eph Goodweather is called to enter the plane first as it is suspect to a possible virus.
The plane also had a huge crate in its cargo that mysteriously vanished the same time, the survivors turned into raving, vampirelike killer machines.
Old Abraham Setrakian knows what is happening and is out to contain the so called virus but he knows better. His past taught him that Manhattan and the whole world is facing extinction.

New York is infected, vampires running the streets.
The war has begun and its only opponents is a small group of an old man, a woman, a doctor and his little boy and a sewer cleaner.

Rating:

Audio CD
Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
Publisher: HarperAudio; Unabridged edition (June 2, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061715204
ISBN-13: 978-0061715204