Blood Red (U)

When a fortune-teller shows bridesmaid Lauren Crow an omen of her gruesome death, she and her friends laugh it off as cheesy theatrics until women begin disappearing in the night.Even as the streets become more dangerous, Lauren finds herself lusting after a man who is himself dangerous and quite possibly crazy. Mark Davidson prowls the city by night armed with crosses and holy water, in search of vampires, whose existence, he insists, is real. He is as irresistibly drawn to Lauren as she is to him, and not only because she's the image of his murdered fianc e. But Mark's frightening obsession with finding his lover's killer merely hides a bitter vendetta that cuts deeper than grief over a lost love.As Lauren wrestles with desire and disbelief, sinister shadows lengthen over New Orleans, threatening her friends and foretelling a battle that may spell the end of the city's uneasy truce between the living and the undead.Publishers WeeklyGraham's latest is an entertaining vampire yarn set in post-Katrina New Orleans, where three women-Lauren, Heidi and Deanna-have turned up for a carefree bachelorette weekend. Once there a fortune teller shows Lauren a crystal ball image of a man calling her by name and promising "a world of blood and death and darkness." The vision, unseen by her friends, puts Lauren on her guard, convinced that someone is following her. She's doubly right: an evil vampire named Stephen is on her trail, having seen in Lauren the visage of his lost love, while a vampire hunter named Mark Davidson is on Stephen's. Soon, Lauren falls in with Mark, counting on him to protect her from the single-minded bloodsucker; as she learns more about the vampire underworld, however, she finds things aren't all they seem. This quick, dirty read makes great use of its New Orleans backdrop and its allusive story line-patched together skillfully from pieces of Bram Stoker's original and its consequent reinterpretations-though fans already steeped in vamp lit may find its charms don't outweigh its predictability. (July)Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information