The Strain is the first novel in a new trilogy from acclaimed director Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) and author Chuck Hogan (Prince of Thieves). This new series is about vampires and an outbreak that threatens to take over the world. If you like a good horror thriller, you're really going to enjoy this one.

The story begins with a passenger jet landing at an airport. Immediately upon touchdown, the tower loses all contact with the people inside. The lights are turned out, and all the window shades are pulled down. No matter what the officials outside try, they can't make any contact with anyone inside. Once a team is gathered and they open the plane, they find all but a few of the passengers are dead, and the survivors have no memory of what happened. It was as if the passengers just suddenly stopped being alive.

Later on at the morgue, some initial tests are done on the bodies to determine the cause of death, and that's where things get stranger. In a mixture of CSI and Supernatural, the plot slowly unfolds to reveal what killed these people, and how they aren't exactly dead. Total chaos begins when a confused forensic scientists opens the refrigerated body storage area of the morgue after he hears something banging against the inside of the door.

The main character is a guy who works for the CDC, or Center for Disease Control. Through this character, we get to see the medical side of vampires. Being a scientist, it afforded the authors a chance to let someone go through all the usual empirical notions and see nothing make sense before concluding that they were up against something nobody had ever seen before. Doing so let's the story slowly build up while you can feel a sense of dread coming as matters get worse for everyone involved.

In many ways, this is as much a zombie story as it is a vampire one. The way in which the infection spreads is more like what you'd find in a zombie book, but it works quite well here. In fact, it adds another level of terror in how you become infected, because there's more than just a regular old vampire bite. The book goes into a lot of detail as to how the human body changes once infected, and I thought those parts of the story were very interesting. The vampires in this book are a lot like the ones in 30 Days of Night where most of them just growl and snarl and don't seem very intelligent - like zombies.

Since this is all about the undead, you better believe there is plenty of gore and violence. The vampires in this are not the romantic types who hypnotize you with their good looks. Instead, they are bloodthirsty maniacs who hide in shadows and wait to attack anything with a beating heart. They are relentless in their pursuit of quenching an unrelenting thirst, and their lack of self preservation makes them a tough opponent in a fight. This book has quite a few scenes involving pets and even children being attacked and turned. If this were a movie, it would certainly be rated R.

If you like horror stories, especially ones about vampires or zombies, then you need to read The Strain. It's a strong start to what should be an entertaining trilogy, and I expect it to be adapted into a movie very soon.

Related:
The Fall - Book two review

Recommended: Yes