Merrick by Anne Rice

Anne Rice is a master of modern gothic fiction, most well-known for her books centered on the vampires of Louisiana in The Vampire Chronicles. Of this series, the most popular is undoubtedly Interview with a Vampire, in which readers meet the vampire Lestat, the youthful and vivacious rockstar bloodsucker at the center of so many of Rice's works.  He yet again makes an appearance in the novel Merrick, though it is not the sole tragedy of the vampires being told this time.  Merrick is the first of Rice's works to incorporate both the vampires she so popularized as well as the Mayfair Witches, the title characters in her secondary series of novels which focus on the voodoo queens coexisting with the undead.

This crossover novel brings David and Louis, two vampires who appear in several other Rice tales, together with Merrick, a witch of formidable power who has no qualms about using her abilities and pushing them to the extreme.  It is for this reason that she is sought out by the two undead; poor Louis wishes to retrieve the child vampire Claudia from the netherworld after her death and believes Merrick to be the only one able, and willing, to do this.  Though this quest is what drives the plot, Merrick relies heavily on flashbacks and unrelated memories to tell the story of how this witch came to be and how she became involved with David, who is also her mentor of sorts. 

While this backstory is interesting enough, incorporating a particularly gripping trek into Aztec ruins to retrieve mystical relics and fall victim to ancient curses, the constant switching from past to present does nothing for the flow of the plot.  It causes the story to feel jerky and awkward, often limping along from chapter to chapter until the eventual end which could have been reached much more quickly if not bogged down by confusing memories; altogether, the effort to retrieve Claudia seems a feeble cover story for a biography of Merrick.  Claudia's resurrection could be a brilliant story on it's own, if told properly, as could Merrick's history, but together the two clash and create a clunky work of fiction in which neither plotline is fully realized. 

If this were not enough to make a potentially decent novel disappointing, there are several plot elements introduced at the end which at last make the novel page-turning, but as these are so tardy in their arrival they aren't allowed to blossom and reach their full potential.  This fact makes the next book in the Mayfair/Vampire series somewhat tempting to read, which earns Rice kudos as it is no easy feat to reel readers in to a follow-up novel from a lackluster preceeder, but in the end it is likely that the disappointment of Merrick would only bleed over into the next book, Blackwood Farm.  Never say never, but I don't see myself picking up this sequel anytime in the near future.