Following the grief and horror of her discovery of Jack the Ripper’s true identity, Audrey Rose Wadsworth has no choice but to flee London and its memories. Together with the arrogant yet charming Thomas Cresswell, she journeys to the dark heart of Romania, home to one of Europe’s best schools of forensic medicine… and to another notorious killer, Vlad the Impaler, whose thirst for blood became legend.

But her life’s dream is soon tainted by blood-soaked discoveries in the halls of the school’s forbidding castle, and Audrey Rose is compelled to investigate the strangely familiar murders. What she finds brings all her terrifying fears to life once again.

First we dealt with the horror of a real life of Dr. Frankenstein, now Audrey Rose and Thomas venture into Dracula’s castle to learn criminal forensics from the foremost teacher in the business.

Actually, this is just a summer course for the headmaster to determine who may get into class, and as the only female Audrey Rose will have to surmount not only her repressed grief over the Jack the Ripper case, but prove herself against all the men who underestimate herself.

Unfortunately, Thomas is more of a hinderance than a help in this regard. It’s fun to see the evolution from cold, analytical profiler of the first book to the boy who’s still has a super-sized brain, but horrible in dealing with his emotions. He so wants to help Audrey, but all his attempts to defend her make her look weak in the other eyes of her other classmates and undermine the professionalism that marked their relationship. It was hilarious at times, but I understood Audrey Rose’s frustration. I think they did a good job in communicating in the latter half of the book with Audrey Rose defining that she needs his support, not his shield.

Okay, maybe sometimes she needs his shield because Audrey Rose is dealing with the after-effects of her brother’s heinous life and death. And by dealing, I mean she’s not. She refuses to talk about it. Throughout the novel, she doesn’t once refer to him by name. So I can see why Thomas is trying in his clumsy fashion to get her to confront that fear. Honestly, this part of the novel was a let-down as Audrey Rose never gets a cathartic moment by herself or with Thomas to process her feelings about Nathanial. It gets swept under by the pertaining mystery as well as Audrey Rose’s epiphany that in trying to prove herself as competent to everyone doesn’t mean that accepting help reverses all that work.

As for the pertaining mystery, the combination of lore and forensic is giving more focus through the structured classes, and due to the new setting, there is always a sense of unease. Audrey Rose is not in her comfort zone, and that jitteriness transfers to the atmosphere. The stories of vampires and strigos doesn’t help. I loved learning more about the forensic techniques like how one could truly drain someone of blood and the killer’s clever twist playing on the myths of Vlad the Impaler. The physical descriptions were especially vivid, I could see the blood oozing from the crypts and the mausoleum of skulls. So macabre! Plus with all the new faces, there were plenty of red herrings and plot threads that made for a twisty mystery as to what the killer’s motives were.

It was a surprise to me, however I found the motivation of the killer to be rather. . insane. Which can be fair, but considering how the killer seemed so level-headed, her true motivations seemed like it came from a different character. I know sociopaths can change personalities quickly, but it simply felt too abrupt to me.

Maniscalco introduces some fun new side characters like Anastasia, Thomas’ sister Draciana, and the maid, Ileana who all have their own hand in the forensic classes even though they’re not formally allowed. Nor are they considered smart enough to understand it. But I enjoyed seeing Audrey Rose find her kindred souls, and prevents the whole “not other girls” vibe Audrey Rose would have gotten if it was solely her and Thomas. As fun as a duo they are skulking around caves and sharing their fear of tarantulas.

Another nitpick I had was the near-mandatory Thomas has a brooding man moment because he comes from the same line as Vlad the Impaler which makes him a bad person or such nonsense. But luckily that was amended quickly with a conversation. They had a mystery to solve after all.

3 1/2 stars