In the series' third book, Darren the half-vampire and his mentor Mr. Crepsley hunt a "vampaneze" (a sort of vampire) that kills its victims. Flat characters jerk through a contrived, inconsistent plot turgid with impassioned but wholly unbelievable dialogue, while the climactic ruse about who will be sacrificed in whose place in the end never makes it off the ground.

Reviewed with Darren Shan's Vampire Mountain .Gr. 5-8. Teen half-vampire--and author--Darren Shan returns in the next two installments in the Cirque Du Freak series. In Tunnels , Darren has begun to adjust to his fate, but he remains distrustful of his vampire master, Larten Crepsley. When six bodies are discovered drained of blood, Darren and his friend Evra the snake boy decide Mr. Crepsley is behind the killings, and they vow to stop him. When Vampire Mountain begins, Mr. Crepsley has emerged as a heroic, trustworthy mentor for Darren. The two set out for a council at Vampire Mountain, where Darren faces a deadly challenge. Like others in the series, these combine suspense with gory yet fascinating detail, occasional pathos, and even a bit of humor. The cliffhanging ending promises more to come. Two thumping good reads for fans.

Gr 6-8-Shan will continue to draw "Goosebumps" (Scholastic) graduates with this third installment in the series. Here, he sends his eponymous teenaged protagonist, who is still not quite a full-blooded (so to speak) vampire, along with scaly snake-boy Evra and century-old Larten Crepsley on a mysterious mission. They are to kill, as it eventually turns out, a rogue "vampaneze," a member of a minority group that believes in killing its victims, draining their blood rather than just taking sips. In the process, young "Darren" meets vivacious human (probably, but stay tuned) Debbie Hemlock, and learns a little more about Mr. Crepsley's checkered background. The game's a little slow to develop, but after a gory meat-locker scene, much running about in sewer tunnels, and lines like "When I came to, I found myself face to face with a skull. Not any old skull, either-this still had flesh on it, and one of the eyeballs was floating in its socket," the vampaneze meets a suitably horrible end, described in stomach-churning detail. The story is compulsively readable, but it's not for the squeamish.-John Peters, New York Public Library Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.