The Night Inside

While taking an early-morning walk through the streets of contemporary Toronto, graduate student Ardeth Alexander is abducted by two men and taken to an isolated building, where she discovers to her horror that she has been brought to supply blood to an imprisoned vampire named Dimitri Rozokov. Baker's engrossing debut alternates the present-day story with the 1898 diary of obsessed businessman Ambrose Dale, who drove Rozokov into hiding and a 100-year sleep from which he awoke only to be captured by a sadist who keeps him in line with an ultrasound machine and makes pornographic snuff films of the hapless vampire feeding on prostitutes. Learning his story, Ardeth gradually loses her horror of Rozokov and begins to see their human jailers as the real monsters. Their only hope of salvation is to trace the links to Rozokov's Victorian nemesis and discover the person behind his 20th-century captivity. Modern subjects like AIDS and incest mingle with age-old vampire lore as the narrative moves toward a gruesome climax. In prose studded with passages of dark luster, Baker offers a truly original scenario. (Jan.)