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Try to run away from Don Ecker’s pulse-pounding new novel Past Sins and it will rip your throat out. Submit! Read it! And you might survive! There are horror novels and then there is Past Sins. Ecker has obviously been in the middle of a moment so horrific that one’s senses cease to operate, and the dance of death begins. You can thank him or curse him, but he has now decided to personally share that moment with you in his epic Past Sins. Drink or feed at your own risk!
— Dwight Schultz, television and film star.
Past Sins is a superb, scary tale of black ops, tough cops, and vampires, but is also much more than that. Past Sins is a scary book that gave me nightmares galore as I plowed through it compulsively. It is a page-turner, but for me one I could not read at night... and I don’t even believe in vampires! It delves deeply into the folklore and history surrounding vampirism, and blends this seamlessly in the storyline, but it is also a portrait of good and evil – evil of the vilest kind – and this is found not only in the undead. In this novel, it is debatable who is more evil and ruthless – the vampires, or those who try to wield them as weapons.
Past Sins is an allegory, in addition to being a horrifying page-turner: it is a fable for our time, because the title refers not to the sins of the undead, but to those of our own government. The premise – that the US government, in absolute secrecy, discovered and employed a vampire during the Cold War – is chillingly reminiscent of the historical record, where the US intelligence community showed itself willing to employ former Nazis, Mafiosi, assorted homicidal despots, Osama Bin Laden, reportedly little gray aliens, and finally even the French. The noble end of defeating Communism supposedly justified all of these “means.” But as the US has learned painfully, the devils you support and employ, you ultimately cannot control.
In Past Sins, all hell literally breaks loose. However, Past Sins functions not just as a horrifying tale, and not just as an allegory, but also as a vivid story with engaging characters. Don Ecker’s fertile imagination has produced a wide cast of veteran soldiers, nervous Intel operatives, and hard-boiled cops all woven together in the cosmos that is Los Angeles. I was especially smitten by his portrait of the LA police, who deal with such horror and danger daily that even the appearance of vampirism barely provokes raised eyebrows among them. As one reads the book, one is soon involved with the characters and swept up in the wild train ride that finally ends with a shattering conclusion. The US government, once fully aware that its horrid secret weapon has escaped, pulls out all stops to try to contain the evil is has unwittingly unleashed. “Old Vic” Norgarde says: read this book!
― Dr. John Brandenburg, author (with Monica Rix Paxson) of Dead Mars, Dying Earth and (under the pen name, Victor Norgarde) of Morningstar Pass: The Collapse of the UFO Cover-Up.
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