Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter sounded like a book that would only be amusing or interesting in its base concept, but nothing more. I picked up the book fully expecting it to be bad and only have a few parts where I would find it interesting. I was pleasantly surprised and found a pretty good vampire story.

Outside of Teddie Roosevelt–who you could say was Batman and a master zombie-killer while still being perfectly plausible–there are few presidents who mix well with weird stories. Abraham Lincoln is one of those few. With his height and iconic figure, you can imagine him fighting vampires quite easily. There is just something about him that makes it all seem plausible.

Abe’s vampire hunting began when, at age eleven, he discovers that vampire’s blood is what killed his mother. This revelation leads him to promise that he will destroy every vampire in America. He begins his training and studying in earnest so he can properly dispose of these creatures and has some failures due to the inaccuracy of folklore.

The story is told through both a third person perspective and first-person excerpts from Abraham Lincoln’s diary. This method works well for the most part, but sometimes the switch can be a bit jarring.

As the story goes on, Abe becomes one of the greatest vampire hunters around. He then discovers southern vampires feeding on their weak slaves, using them as an endless supply of food.

This vampire/slavery connection is never utilized very well and feels slightly awkward at best and forced at worst. The plot would have been much better served by better set-up to this reveal and better support for it. After this initial discovery, the book doesn’t really have many other scenes of vampires feeding off of slaves.

This also turns the Civil War into a vampire war, which again could have been handled better. Despite these issues, the book is a good read. It has some humor and, when appropriate, amusing B-movie dialog and moments. Having Abraham Lincoln run through the forest after a vampire feels surprisingly satisfying, and works much better than expected. It isn’t so much of a humorous story as a vampire story that stars Abraham Lincoln. It handles itself seriously and that works for the most part.

When he becomes President, Abe’s vampire hunting stops, (it’s a bit harder to moonlight as a killer when you’re the president) but the plot remains interesting until the end of the Civil War. After that it becomes a little tedious as you are just waiting for John Wilkes Booth to kill him already. The book isn’t historically accurate in many regards, but it does throw some things in for history buffs.

It’s a good, fun read overall and is a very welcome reprieve from all of the teenage heartthrob vampires we have seen thanks to Twilight. It’s no literary masterpiece, but Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a good book that I can wholeheartedly recommend.