It is the time of the Restoration, a time of great upheaval in Britain. Puritanism is swept aside by the return of a debauched monarchy, and it is in this time that a series of grisly murders are committed in the ancient, mystical countryside of Wiltshire. It falls to militia Captain John Foxe to solve the murders and in so doing, his home and family come under threat. Some great evil is abroad, and it looks to be the local cavalier lord, returned from Prague to recommence his sorcerous ways and avenge his defeat at Foxe’s hands. Come to clear the way for him is the strange figure calling himself Faustus, who buys the village off and ensures that Foxe and his family have no escape. Foxe is murdered, and his son Robert witnesses the burning of his mother and Lady Vaughan, a friend of the family, at the hands of the villagers. Emily Vaughan, his beloved, is held prisoner by Faustus. Robert’s family and home are lost to him, and he witnesses a ritual of awesome power, designed, it seems, to raise the Devil himself. He is touched by this evil, but seems destined to be spared. He is found at Stonehenge the next day and soon finds himself in London, in the keep of the bewitching Milady and the dubious Lightborn, who are more than they seem. We are introduced to vampires, who attend the Court of Charles II, hell bent on retrieving some old book, rumoured to have been in the possession of John Dee. Only this manuscript can banish the evil raised at Stonehenge, an evil which is causing the sickness of several blood-drinkers and which may also be the source of the great plague. Robert Foxe, now named Lovelace by his mysterious benefactor, Milady, is drawn deeper and deeper into this hunt and, at the same time, into the debauched world of the aristocracy. Throughout, he harbours a deep love for both Emily and Milady.

Holland employs admirable skill in weaving such figures as Aubrey and Rochester into his fiction, taking recorded aspects of their lives and twisting them to fit his own designs. However, this is still the story of Robert Lovelace, so the real people take a back seat. I got the impression that they were only there to illustrate a point, to give some credibility to the events within these pages. Rather like the set of a western movie, when looked at from the front, they seem substantial enough, but step to the side and the two-dimensionality becomes all too clear. Only Rochester really comes alive, though that may be due to his notoriously licentious approach to life. That, and Holland’s making him a vampire. Of the many historical figures one could have, the Earl is a good choice in this respect. This is a small point though, as the historical characters are secondary to Robert’s search for the evil creature and a way to defeat it. He even encounters the Wandering Jew, a creature who may be a demon or an angel, but was certainly never human, and who gives him the answer to the affliction that has haunted him since his first encounter with the evil force. When it was finally revealed just what was causing Robert such pain for so long I felt little surprise. From the moment of his encounter with the devilish creature at Stonehenge, the outcome was quite well telegraphed. Added to this, the resolution of the problem struck me as something of a deus ex machina. There was no doubt that it would be sorted out, seeing as Lovelace is the hero, but it seemed a little too easy. From this point on, Lovelace is fully resolved to find the evil and destroy it once and for all, believing that he finally has the means to do so. He demands a high price of Rochester, then travels back to his home village of Woodton to destroy everything the evil wrought and take revenge upon Vaughan for allowing the death of his parents. The story seems to have come full circle, with Robert now in the position once occupied by the vampire priest and sorcerer, Faustus. Once again, the evil is raised, but when Robert tries to defeat it he finds himself lost. When he does eventually win, the victory is somewhat bitter, as Robert has lost so much to find peace.

After the story’s steady march, the conclusion almost gusts along at gale force, but for all that, it doesn’t seem rushed. The tension is superb. Holland has not fallen into the sticky trap of a slushy ending provided by the likes of Stephen King. This is an altogether more serious work, though it still leaves many unanswered questions. Just who or what was the evil creature? Where did vampires originate? There is a lot of talk about angels and devils, but this veil is never really lifted. This may be because the novel is really telling the tale of the good fight, the struggle between Good and Evil. The name or the source is unimportant. What matters is the eternal quality of this fight: the hero’s struggle to find a means to destroy the evil, his descent into almost becoming evil himself and his ultimate victory, with its attendant heavy cost. It is an age old tale that Holland tells well, though sometimes a little more depth would have been nice, especially in the treatment of the mystery of Milady.

Deliver Us From Evil is a good read, clever, brutal, with sly touches of dark humour. It’s not perfect but then, like diamonds, that little bit of roughness sometimes makes it more appealing. And it virtually cries out to be taken from the shelf: it’s extremely well presented, with a cover photograph by Simon Marsden and an extract from the Voynich Manuscript on the flyleaves. It leaves the usual horror novel looking like a lump of rough-hewn coal.