The Vampyre: The Secret History of Lord Byron, by Tom Holland (Warner, £5.99 in UK)

It was inevitable, I suppose, that the runaway success of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles would produce a host of imitators. In his bid to create a hero as appealing as Rice's Lestat, Tom Holland hit upon a bright idea, namely, that of making the poet Byron - he of the curling locks and curling up - into a vampire. Bright idea, and brightly researched, with each chapter preceded by a suitably sinister bit of "real" Byron ("Then ghastly haunt the native place/And suck the blood of all thy race", etc., etc.) and a delightful double act instituted between the pouty, vampire Byron and his "real" and stoutly British, travelling companion, Hobhouse. Alas, it all falls down when it comes to the plot, which is muddled and woolly, with a clumsily handled transition from Byron's central narrative to the "present day" story.