SOURCE: A review of The Blood Countess, in Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1995, pp. 487-88.

The following review commends Codrescu's historical novel The Blood Countess, comparing it to the works of Anne Rice, Zoe Oldenbourg, and Marguerite Yourcenar.

An expertly crafted first novel uncovers the roots of contemporary Eastern European carnage in the lurid story of a notorious 16th-century murderess.

Romanian-born poet, essayist, and NPR commentator Codrescu (Road Scholar, 1993, etc.) abandoned plans for a factual book about Elizabeth Bathory, his real-life ancestor, a beautiful Hungarian countess convicted and imprisoned for torturing and murdering more than 600 young girls—and has instead produced a compulsively readable fiction in which the story of Elizabeth's life and crimes is juxtaposed with a parallel narrative describing the agonies of conscience suffered by her 20th-century descendant: an Americanized journalist whose reluctant return to his homeland exposes him to Elizabeth's aura and influence—with catastrophic results. Drake...