Christopher Farnsworth’s follow-up to last year’s Blood Oath opens with Nathaniel Cade—the patriotic vampire charged with guarding every president since Abraham Lincoln—duking it out with Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. It’s the most wickedly entertaining prologue you’ll likely see this month—who hasn’t fantasized about shoving a grenade down bin Laden’s gullet?—especially when the bearded terrorist morphs into a giant reptile with “piranha-like” fangs and declares his allegiance to a master other than Allah.

That other master turns out to be Archer/Andrews, a Blackwater-esque private military firm headquartered beneath the largest shopping mall in the United States and hell-bent on ushering in a new world order by injecting cutthroats, Somali pirates, and Ugandan child soldiers with a serum that swaps skin with scales, hands with talons, and conscience with a craving for human flesh.

No, The President’s Vampire won’t raise your IQ or provide much food for thought, but this is a thriller penned by an author who clearly had a blast writing it. For readers, that makes for a treat.

This review appears in the June 2011 issue of The Washingtonian.

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