The current fascination with vampires in popular culture probably begins with Interview with the Vampire rather than Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It’s not hard to see why. In Stoker’s novel, Dracula is a charismatic figure, but one that is a threat to the patriarchal values of Victorian society and in a sense, he represents the challenges that social change presented to the author and his society. Most of his victims are women and he is destroyed in the end by a group of men, representative of the elite at that time. Rice presents a more sympathetic and psychologically complex picture of the vampire

V.I. Warshawski, the daughter of a Polish police officer and an Italian music teacher, is a complex, hard boiled and impoverished P.I. living in Chicago's downtown neighbourhood. Published in 1994, Tunnel Vision is based on the 1992 flooding of the tunnels under the Loop in downtown Chicago. V.I. comes across a homeless woman and her children in the basement of her derelict downtown office building. She mentions the family to Deirdre Messenger, a member of a shelter for abused women. When Deirdre's body turns up in V.I.'s office, she is up to her neck unravelling the lies and politics around

Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) was the first woman elected to the Academie Francaise and a writer of great erudition, fluent in Latin, Greek and Italian as well as her native French. She was introduced to Classical Literature by her father, Michel-Renne Cleenewerck de Crayencour, a minor French noble who actively encouraged her literary ambitions. The Memoirs of Hadrian is her best- known work in the English-speaking world, an instant success when it was first published in 1951. The work had a long gestation. Yourcenar first contemplated writing a novel based on the Emperor’s own

Maisie Dobbs is a former maid and wartime nurse turned private investigator. In Birds of a Feather, set in 1930's London, she and her assistant, Billy Beale, are asked to find the missing daughter of a wealthy grocery magnate.They soon discover that three of the woman's friends have been murdered in a similar and unusual manner. The disappearance and the murders are linked and intriguingly lead them back to World War I. The traumatic effects of World War I on people's lives is explored in a thoughtful manner. Maisie herself is a fascinating and very likeable character. Her personal life and

The story is set in Europe in 1938 and 1939. It features the suave Nicholas Morath, an expatriate Hungarian and the co-owner of an advertising agency in Paris. His sumptuous and decadent lifestyle is brought to life in what is tantamount to a homage to pre-war Paris. Following Hitler's annexation of Austria, which signals trouble for Hungary, Morath is summoned to lunch by his uncle, Count Janos Polyani, an official in the Hungarian legation in Paris. Polyani entrusts Morath with a series of missions, which lead him from the Paris expatriate underworld to gloomy pre-war Eastern Europe. Furst

A jaded cynical writer who has tired of ghostwriting the biographies of forgettable celebrities and faded stars leaps at the offer to write the biopic of former UK prime minister Alan Lang. Once popular Lang has left office in disgrace due to war in the Middle East. Holding up in a wintry desolate Martha's Vineyard he awaits an imminent war crimes trial.

The unnamed writer discovers that his predecessor who had not completed his manuscript was found washed ashore on a beach and his untimely death was not natural. He encounters Lang's wife who was the real driving force behind her husband’s

New TV drama is rare during Covid-19, and the best so far - Normal People and I May Destroy You - have already been reviewed to death. So I’ve decided to give a shout out to an unassuming comedy series that ran from 2009 to 2018 which, while not exactly cutting edge, gives an insight into the weird world of Trump-voting America that is compassionate as well as satirical.

Frankie and Mike Heck live with their 3 children in the “Hoosier” state of Indiana - in the middle both geographically and socially. They’re not quite on the bread-line, but it’s a close call at times, as Frankie urges her

A book about house arrest, now doesn’t this sound familiar. This novel is set around a Russian count Alexander Ilyich Rostov sentenced to spend his life under house arrest in The Metropol Hotel, one of the most exclusive establishments in 1920s Moscow.

What follows is a diary of thirty years penned by the charming Alexander from the confines of this hotel located next to the Kremlin. Part historical novel and part thriller this book will take you on a journey from the formation of the Soviet Union up until the death of Stalin.

This latest book by Tracy Chevalier is set in rural England the period between the two world wars.

The people are coming to terms with the loss of life in the Great War and also of the sacrifices made by those at home. The main character Violet Speedwell has lost her financé and her brother in the war. She is one of what was known as the “Surplus women”. She moves away from her home and her controlling mother, to the nearby city of Winchester. She sets about forging a new life around her job in this city.