The epic battle between humanity and evil vampires and werewolves traced in Lumley's massive Necroscope novels continues in this second volume in the saga's Lost Years mini-saga, which began when Harry Keough, the Necroscope, lost his memory and awoke in the body of another man. Harry hasn't lost his powers to travel through time and space and to speak with the dead, however, so he's as potent an enemy as ever of vampires and werewolves. These creatures are the descendants of extraterrestrial exiles, and their struggle both to eliminate one another and to rule the world is reaching a climax. One of them, Radu Lykan, last of the original invaders and first of all werewolves, is seeking to move his mind from his own plague-ravaged body into Harry's. This premise leads to an absorbing, if convoluted and bloody tale. In the end, the Necroscope prevails with the aid of one of Radu's female accomplices, who has fallen in love with him, and with such odd allies from among the dead as Franz Anton Mesmer, Nostradamus and Harry Houdini. Lumley retains weaknesses for purple prose, maximum gore and discursive historical passages. Few readers who haven't followed the saga through the previous books will appreciate this volume, but those who have will know, and likely will relish, what they get.

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