The basic premise is this: it's 1817, and a man named Frederick Whithers is wallowing in jail for a crime he didn't commit, desperate to get out so he can go and commit it for real. He fakes his own death and escapes in a coffin, but when he gets to the graveyard and crawls out of the coffin, somebody sees him and assumes he's a vampire. It's pretty much all downhill from there. Frederick spends the rest of the book doing everything he can to steal a massive inheritance from a dead man, all the while running from constables, vampire hunters, ghouls, poets, proper young ladies, highly improper young ladies, morticians, mysterious figures, and the most pathetic collection of vampires to ever disgrace a work of fiction.
The book is Extremely Silly: imagine a horror story, as written by Monty Python, in the style of the old screwball comedies like The Producers, What's Up Doc?, and Some Like it Hot, and then imagine that for some reason it's also in the style of a Victorian frame story starring John Keats and presented by a fake historian. A delightfully funny novel full of witty dialogue brought to life by the narrative voice talents of Sean Barrett. **