Review – Field of Blood

The ancient site where a traitor’s blood was spilt two millennia ago is a potential breeding ground for vile, unearthly spirits who wait to be freed from their vaporous wanderings. In 1989, their hopes are granted when excavators accidentally disturb tombs outside Jerusalem. The Collectors inhabit bodies of the dead, feed on the blood of the living, and often infest them with thorny brambles on which they feast. (Delicate constitutions aside, the “ick” factor is understated, really.)

For Gina Lazarescu, life in Romania as an almost twelve-year-old is hard work. Her mother is overprotective, her father dead. After a handsome stranger holds a secretive conversation with her mother, she is whisked away with them away from the home she has always known to avoid impending revolution and other unnamable dangers. She will not forget the man’s promise to watch after her and find her again one day.

Gina is special, and she’s in danger, but so are many others. Each person must make the choice as to which side they will be on, and take responsibility for those choices. I’ll stop there with the plot so as not to reveal too much.

True to form, Wilson digs deep into history and human nature to produce the mother lode of supernatural fiction. Blood sucking vampires aside, Field of Blood isn’t overly weird or “out there.” Everything that happens is connected and has a reason. Lots of things are hidden just enough to cause confusion (at least for me), but I’ve been promised by the author himself that those things will be explained in the next book.

I give Wilson points for creativity galore, a satisfyingly complex plot line, adequate suspense, and the flowing style I’ve come to love in the course of his writings. He effectively portrays the sickening and the beautiful, exalting true life. Life is in the blood, after all?whose blood flows through your veins?