*SPOILERS*
I read The Historian all the way through on a sentimental vacation, but when I contemplated it, it lacked in so many areas. There were the countless "Well, gee golly" coincidences--EVERY country they travel to turns up another scholar who happens to butt in on their conversations and who has likewise received the antiquarian book, and he has that imperative little clue to push them on farther. There was the lack of urgency. There was the grave sin of that huge, unfinished dissertation of an infodump with barely perceptible relevance just to pad up an extra 60 pages. She even justified it with what was essentially, "This was someone's research. Here, let me show you the whole thing." How clumsy and careless. There was nothing in there that couldn't have been distributed in small pieces throughout the book; it didn't contain any groundbreaking new information. I was frankly shocked that she allowed her characters to be ignorant regarding those facts to begin with.
And then the biggest letdown was, for me, the Vladinator himself.
After all of that, he just wanted a LIBRARIAN? THAT was the damnation that loomed for Rossi, after innumerable others? That was seriously his aim? Somehow, I don't equate needing a bookkeeper with going on a homicidal rampage and taking academics hostage, even for a madman like Vlad Tepes. Such an imbalanced motive, in my opinion. Then there's the fact that, after 500 years of undead existence and seeming invincibility and, well, being one of the most vile, incomprehensible madmen in all of written history, all it took was a common handgun to bring Dracula down forever. Silly us.
That whole scene was so laughable. So "Muah haha. Ha. Welcome to my lair." What a melodramatic monologuer he turned out to be. It was, of course, followed by the requisite table discussion in which all is revealed and neatly packaged. Oh, and Mom comes home too. Whatatwist!
So yeah. I read it. Wasn't a fan of it. It had a lot of promise, though. The absence of sparkly vampires definitely gave it an advantage at first.
Shame it was so disappointing.