Out of the Night
Robin T. Popp
Warner, Sep 2005, $6.50, 368 pp.
ISBN: 0446616265

Admiral Winslow arranges a charter flight to take volunteer EMT firefighter and full time librarian Lanie Weber from Houston to Taribu in the Amazon Rain Forest so she can take home her dad, who just died in an accident. Michael "Mac" Knight of Dey or Knight Private Charters flies her, but hides from her that she is his cover to learn what happened at the zoological research facility and whether naval officer Lance Burton is dead.

At the remote lab, they find five corpses all lacking blood as if a creature dined on them. Lanie opens up a cage containing a statue that comes to life and bites Mac when he tries to rescue her. She contains the creature before dragging Mac into the facility where she provides him a blood transplant that saves his life. She concludes that her father, an expert on cryptozoology, must have found El Chupacabra, which she assumes is the stone creature inside the cage. Believing her father and Burton are vampires, Lanie will soon join them as a blood sucker. Since she cannot get TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN, Mac knows he must kill the woman he now loves.

OUT OF THE NIGHT is an engaging vampire romance starring two wonderful lead characters supported by a solid (no pun intended) cast to include El Chupacabra, the two vampires, and the US Navy. The story line is action-packed as the thriller elements take charge of the plot. Though the romantic subplot seems abrupt, fans will enjoy the relationship between Mac and Lanie starting with his drugging her so she can fly. Robin T. Popp writes a fabulous supernatural romantic suspense that never slows down until the final altercation.

Harriet Klausner