Given the final book in the trilogy just came out about two weeks ago, it's a good time to take a look at the book that started it all.

Another plane has safely landed at the JFK airport, but it shuts down suddenly and every light goes off. When all attempts to communicate with the plane fail, they call in various emergency response teams, including Dr. Eph Goodweather of Disease Control, fearing that something has happened to the people on the plane. Something did...and it's going to spread to people on the ground. Eph reluctantly teams up with a seemingly out-of-his-mind professor and Holocaust survivor and together they battle an ancient evil.

Pan Labyrinth's Del Toro has taken the classic vampire and given it a make-over and drained anything that is "romantic" about the concept. Instead, he gives us something totally gruesome and horrifying and definitely not for the squeamish. Everyone has his/her own demon to deal with literally, and the humans seem to be fighting a long losing battle right from the start. It's kinda hard to keep up with the big cast of characters, and there is only so many times you can truly feel scared and worried as you read about these vampire attacks.  Still, there are some great cinematic scenes and it's a good one to suggest to mature readers who are looking for something that will "scare your pants off" (what a kid told me she's looking for the other day)