Because of her desire to give the reader the necessary family background of the Mayfairs, Rice has a great deal of history to present. She deals with this with the device of the Talamasca Order's files that contain letters and reports written by occult investigators all the way back to the seventeenth century who have recorded the strange doings of the Mayfairs, beginning with Suzanne. With some poetic license, these reports and letters contain dialogue and description couched in an appropriate, somewhat archaic language and style telling the story in more than sufficient detail and development. McGrath calls the book "bloated" and "grown to elephantine proportions," and indeed there is much more story here than is needed to tell about Lasher, Rowan, and Michael. There is considerable repetition; as each character becomes cognizant of certain information, whether the reader has already been made aware or not, it is...