In a dazzling mystery inspired by Bram Stoker's much-beloved DRACULA, the critically acclaimed author of THE SOLITARY HOUSE and A FATAL LIKENESS, Lynn Shepherd --- and her brilliant Victorian detective Charles Maddox --- return in their biggest, most challenging literary suspense novel yet.

Clever, eerie and compelling by turns, THE PIERCED HEART finds detective Charles Maddox traveling to the remote castle of the enigmatic Baron Von Reisenberg, a pioneering scientist with a terrible secret. Meanwhile, London is in the throes of a series of brutal murders, executed by a mysterious killer known only as "The Vampire." What is the connection between the Baron and the murders? And what does the journal of a young theater assistant named Lucy have to do with it all? Maddox must find out. Drawing inspiration from both DRACULA and from the strange life of a mysterious and long-forgotten real-life scientist, THE PIERCED HEART dramatizes a fatal clash between science and superstition, at a time of profound change and dangerous transition, and once again spins a gorgeously atmospheric literary suspense story from one of the world's most beloved novels.