If you liked “Nosferatu”, you have to read “The Portrait of the Predator” by Miguel Rivera.

Nosferatu He caught me off guard. I am not among the people who knew its 1922 version and I went to see it without really knowing what I was going to find. And I liked what I saw, so I guess fans of the old version must have thought it was a masterpiece (the reviews seem to be very good).

In the literary world I have also felt certain hype in 2024 with the return of the vampire myth. Some fairly powerful new books have come out with this figure as a central element and I predict that his trail will last until 2025 although, to be honest, when did vampires really stop interesting us?

That is why today I bring you a vampire novel that moves away from the most youthful current of the genre and that approaches, perhaps, a more thoughtful imaginary like that of the film. Nosferatu. It is about The portrait of the predator and it is from Michael Rivera.

The first thing I liked about this read is its much more mature narrative. It sounded like classic vampire, ruthless, no sweeteners. Furthermore, we are in 1989everything was at the end of the last century, and we were located in Ángara, at eastern europe. and we already know what happens in eastern Europe. In Ángara, a young aristocrat lives with his sister in a small town. He has found what is called Book of Historians where they talk about beings that are very close to the European vampire myth. What he doesn’t know is that he’s also going to come face to face with one.

The date in which the novel takes place seems important to me because the author conveys very well that end of the century, where it is feared, for example, that the 20th century will not stand the test of time.

This is how the story begins. full of nineties references both cinematographic, literary and other cultural types. There is even talk of back to the futurewatch out for that. But all the focus is placed on these two brothers, so, so peculiar. Isaac and Eleanor. I love her. The author has given her a tone of melancholy and carelessness, like a classic Madame Bovary, which makes her cannon fodder for this story.

“Eleanour was a traditional woman, only with a strong and even masculine character.”

It is not a romance story. Nor heroes. Miguel Rivera explores the dark side of the human mind in The portrait of the predator with a very attractive proposal: two brothers, with a very strange and intimate relationship, will wreak chaos throughout Europe at the height of vampirism.

There are very good paragraphs and I think it is well documented. It is clear that the author writes about a topic that he likes and that he has previously learned about from other sources. Also, pay attention to the details, such as telling you how many bullets a gun that the protagonist carries has on him (there are six). And we already know that the devil is in the details.

I’m going to make something clear: If you like vampire novels without being distracted by secondary plots, your book is The portrait of the predator. If what you want are pure and simple vampires, enjoy the myth, the aesthetics, the gothicism, the atmosphere, the cruelty that the primal vampire gives off (like Nosferatu), this is your place.

“You and I… we will fall together.”

Hay moral dilemmasnot everything is going to be blood. And in our main protagonist, Isaac, we are going to experience it very well. However, my favorite parts are scenes of tension (and I don’t know if sexual) between the brothers. It is disconcerting because Miguel Rivera captures a very intimate and even obsessive brotherly love with one or another. pseudo erotic scene Which leads me to think that if the author wanted to develop a more romantic vampire plot with more eroticism, it would be a bombshell. Every time these two get close, sparks fly and they continue to be brothers with the breaking of the law of blood that this implies in any modern society. But it also leaves us with honey on our lips, I think that the romantic theme is not something that Rivera wants to explore right now.

The portrait of the predator of Michael Rivera is a book that talks about the most classic vampire myth and where the focus is placed above all on the exploration of the dark side of the mind, on the limits, on moral dilemmas, with the help of a pair of brothers whose relationship is very explosive (both to defend and love each other -fraternally?-, and to take their aggressiveness to the extreme). I loved it and it seemed like a good time to recommend it along with the return of other bloodsucking entities like Nosferatu.