"The Night Crossing"

Robert Masello is a former journalist, TV writer, and the bestselling author of many novels and nonfiction books, many of them supernatural thrillers with a strong historical foundation. They include The Einstein Prophecy, The Jekyll Revelation, The Romanov Cross, The Medusa Amulet, and his most recent work, The Night Crossing.

Masello applied the Page 69 Test to The Night Crossing and reported the following:

From page 69:

[By way of introduction, allow me to explain that the scene is set at the Beefsteak Club in London, in 1895. Bram Stoker, a theater manager and struggling writer still looking for that one great idea to make his name as an author, is listening to a foreign diplomat named Arminius Vambery-- a real-life figure whom Stoker would transform into Professor Van Helsing in Dracula, published two years later -- talk about transferring the production of a play to Europe. The play is based on some popular folklore, and Vambery is saying...]

"Its story is already well- known throughout Poland and Ukraine, Romania and Transylvania."

Stoker's ears pricked up at the mention of those lands. It was a romantic region, which, although he had never actually explored it, strongly appealed to his imagination. He had long thought of setting one of his Gothic tales there."

"If you have not already been there," Vambery said, "let me say you have missed some of the most dramatic scenery in the world. The towering cliffs capped by the ruined castles of the Romanian voivodes, the deep forests -- Transylvania, I need hardly explain to you, means 'through the forests'-- the cathedrals of Krakow, the blue of the Moldau, and the Bucegi Sphinx that has brooded on its mountaintop forever."

"A sphinx?" Stoker asked.

"Yes," Vambery said. "Distinctly Egyptian in its cast. Venerated by the Gypsies, feared by all."

It was all Stoker could do not to write down every word Vambery was saying ... For now, he just made mental notes.

The Night Crossing purports to be the true story behind arguably the most famous occult tale ever told, Dracula. In it, we watch as Bram Stoker stumbles upon, and gathers up, many of the elements that he will eventually incorporate and transform into that terrifying masterpiece. Page 69 couldn't have been a better choice, as it's here that Transylvania first takes firm hold of his imagination ... and to this day, our own.

Learn more about the book and author at Robert Masello's website.

--Marshal Zeringue