Fangland is a vampire story along the lines of Dracula. It is told in emails, letters, and journal entries. Evangeline Harker, and associate producer on an aclaimed television newsmagazine, The Hour, goes to Transylvania district of Romania to interview a mysterious Eastern European crime lord named Ion Torgu. She meets Clementine Spence on her arrival in Romania and the two travel together to Brasov in Transylvania. The more time Evangeline spend with Clementine the more she believes that their meeting was not accidental and that she is more than a traveler working for a Christian aid agency.

Someone who appears to be Ion Torgu meets Evangeline in her hotel in Brasov and insists on leaving right away for his hotel near the ski resort of Poiana Brasov. They arrive at the hotel, which has no other residents and has suffered much fire damage on the upper floors. After dinner, Torgu escorts Enangeline to one of the top floors and insists that she must be locked in her room for her own safety. At this point the true nature of Torgu begins to emerge and Evangeline increasingly finds herself changing. Into what? By what? You will need to read the book. Several months pass and Evangeline is found in a Transylvanian nunnery.

Back in the U.S., things are getting weird at the offices of The Hour. One of the staff, who has a crush on Evangeline, starts receiving email purportedly from her. he begins to take on a Renfield role in the story. Tapes shipped to the office from Romania seem to have infected the sound systems with a virus, editors are falling ill, and a feeling of impending doom settles over the offices. The story comes to a shattering conclusion and Torgu's secret and Evangeline's transformation are revealed. To say more would be to spoil the story.

The author of Fangland, John Marks, was a producer for 60 Minutes. This gives his descriptions of the behind the scenes activity at a television newsmagazine a real feeling of authnenticity. Detail on the relationships between the on-air talent, the correspondents, the producers, associate producers, the editors, and other support staff are nicely woven into the story. Fangland is the nickname the staff have given The Hour. Marks' method of telling the story is a modernized epistilary approach and I liked him choosing Harker as Evangeline's last name. Her experiences in Transylvania mirror those of Jonathan Harker in bram Stoker's Dracula. I thought Torgu's plan, when revealed at the end, was novel and consistent with the action leading up to the end.

Fangland is not in the modern, sexy, urban horror school of vampire stories. It is a more traditional approach and I recommend it to students of the vampire mythology who enjoy a detailed, complex, layered story.