Stuart Neville, Blood Like Mine

Stuart Neville's writing career began with a sort of political ghost story, Te Ghosts of Belfast, and since then his work has gone from crime fiction to horror, sometimes emphasizing one genre's conventions and sometimes another. In his new Blood Like Mine, he lures a reader in with a character-driven crime story, a mother and daughter on the run, and then shifts suddenly into a high energy horror story still character driven, making the conventions of (spoiler alert) the vampire and zombie tale toward something new. His monster is an original take on the monster as icon, increasing in intensity as the story goes along. From the point where the horror tale bursts into full bloom, the book is relentless, striking, and impossible to put down. Highly recommended, even if you don't usually go for any of the horror genres that Neville touches upon (and stretches to his own ends) here.