The President's Vampire by Christopher Farnsworth

From Goodreads:

The ultimate secret. The ultimate agent. Nathaniel Cade returns. 

For 140 years, Nathaniel Cade has been the President's Vampire, sworn to protect and serve his country. Cade's existence is the most closely guarded of White House secrets: a superhuman covert agent who is the last line of defense against nightmare scenarios that ordinary citizens only dream of. 

When a new outbreak of an ancient evil-one that he has seen before- comes to light, Cade and his human handler, Zach Barrows, must track down its source. To "protect and serve" often means settling old scores and confronting new betrayals . . . as only a centuries-old predator can.

This is the second installment of Nathaniel Cade, the vampire in the service of the white house. The first was Blood Oath and I did review it HERE. Within this story Cade is again fighting the otherworldly forces of evil but I felt it was much more politically based than the first and a lot more involved in conspiracy theories. In this way the author deals with area 51 and even, ironically, to Bin Laden which is the opening sequence. Now before you think that the last part could already make this book outdated, think again... it actually keeps it eerily up to date.

In this book a covert agency is experimenting with an unusual virus which transforms people into a mindless eating and killing creature. The agency is so covert, even those who have high clearance do not know who is involved with this agency. It is no secret that parts of Blackwater were incorporated as well as the images we have of the men in black. These arrogant and self-righteous people become a bigger threat than the one's we know of; or are they? Perhaps they have been involved in those other operations all along. I also find it interesting that the president is based on our current president (if you don't believe me... check the book trailer and listen to the president's voice at the end...).

Part history, part political, and part imagination (yep, that's a lot of parts!) all come together to make a world that you could actually believe might just happen. *checks under the bed for lizard-like monsters* It is a fun and thrilling ride. I suppose my only criticism is that we actually get less Cade in this book than the first. I really want to get to know him and you don't know any more about him in this book than from what you learned in the first. I did get to know Zach a bit better and, in fact, liked him a whole lot more. I also enjoyed the character of Bell (one of the baddies) and some of the secondary characters even if we only knew them for a chapter.

It is a fun political vampire/monster book and I give it 4 stars. I believe you can read this as a stand alone, but I think you should start with the first to really get to know Cade.

I received this ARC from Putnam and Goodreads First Reads Program and no compensation for my review was given.