The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, and The Templar Legacy, by Steve Berry

I’m being stalked by ruthless vampires. I’m being shot at by maniacal monks. I’m frantically fighting for my life, but I can’t keep myself from yawning. Or laughing. Or wondering what’s for dinner.

Don’t worry, my life really is free of bloodsuckers and snipers (knock wood). But I have recently descended into fictional worlds where such things exist, and my experiences there were light on intrigue and heavy on ennui.

The Historian was released last year with much media fanfare. It was going to scare the bejesus out of you. It was trumpeted as the summer read. It promised fiery romance, icy vampires, and sizzling mystery. Despite all the hype and intrigue, I didn’t get around to Elizabeth Kostova’s fang-licker until recently. Then I followed it up with The Templar Legacy, which is an adventure tale cut from the same cloth—using a suspiciously similar pattern—as The Da Vinci Code. It also promised excitement, except it’s a shadowy, breakneck search for an astounding religious artifact that’s supposed to get your blood pumping.

Well, my blood didn’t really quicken (or chill) from either of these tales. Of the two, I enjoyed The Historian more. Its get-Dracula-before-he-gets-you premise isn’t anything new. But Kostova attempts to resuscitate the familiar tale with three different perspectives, all of which involve historians who seem preordained to seek out Dracula. Unfortunately, these characters—a handsome father, his attractive daughter, her smoldering and long-lost mother, and a couple other professor types—often aren’t more interesting than any random page in a high school history text, and certainly not more than the real-life people immortalized on such a page.

Spoiler alert: Specific plot points of this title are revealed in this review beyond this point.

In The Historian, it’s 1930, 1950, and 1972, and the characters’ interwoven quests and storylines take you to some interesting East Bloc locales. And every now and then, however briefly, a vampire minion pops in to suckle someone’s carotid artery. But, overall, the build-up is weak. And the climax is frustrating. After all the chasing, hand-wringing, and sleuthing, we discover a Dracula who is basically a knowledge-crazed bibliophile. He’s a bloodsucking librarian. And he’s dispatched faster than you can say, “I read 600 pages for this?”

I’m afraid that Steve Berry’s The Templar Legacy, though shorter, seemed longer. I wasn’t sure I could finish it. Maybe it’s that I haven’t read The Da Vinci Code and, as a result, haven’t been swept up into the mania for religion-infused adventures. Maybe there are such books out there that are smart, compelling, and filled with dynamic characters—all between the same two covers. Templar isn’t one of them. I’m not saying it isn’t ever smart or compelling, because there are some intelligent insights and interesting moments. I mean, this is a book that uses biblical references to set up its pursuit of what may be the unresurrected bones of Christ. But it was difficult for me to enjoy the more appealing plot developments because the characters who were experiencing them seemed so lifeless and predictable, and their dialogue was as dry as, well, those purported bones.

To borrow from Gershwin, it’s “summertime and the livin’ is easy.” I understand: The readin’ should be easy too. But that doesn’t mean it should be unfulfilling. Fortunately, there are plenty of other summer reads out there that can truly transport you—whether it’s into the arms of a vampire or whatever else floats your beach ball.