Judgment of Tears

infobox Book |
name = Judgment of Tears (Dracula Cha-Cha-Cha)
author = Kim Newman
country = United States
language = English
series = "Anno Dracula" series
genre = Alternate History, Horror
publisher = Avon Books
release_date = 1998
media_type = Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
pages = 291 (paperback)
isbn = 0-380-73229-7
preceded_by = The Bloody Red Baron
followed_by = Johnny Alucard

"Judgment of Tears" (titled "Dracula Cha-Cha-Cha" in Britain), is a 1998 novel by British writer Kim Newman. It is the third book in the Anno Dracula series.

Plot

In 1959 several of the world's notable vampires gather in Rome for the wedding of Count Dracula. Nefarious schemes are afoot and being investigated by British Intelligence, the Diogenes Club, and several others, including a British spy on the trail of a sinister madman with a white cat.

Setting

The book is an alternate history novel set in a world where van Helsing never killed Dracula. The version of Rome shown in the book is heavily influenced by Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. As always in the series, the novel contains a number of characters from other fictional works, though due to copyright restrictions some are not named or are given aliases.

Some of these identity shifts are quite clear (such as the character of Commander Hamish Bond, who has a fondness for martinis, drives an Aston Martin, carries a Walther PPK, has the Scots version of the name "James" for his name, and gets to say "the bitch is dead."), while some are more obscure (a Kansas football player named Kent, for example).

Characters From Other Works of Fiction

These characters come from a variety of different sources. Some, mostly those from public domain works, are listed by name. Some of the others are listed by mere descriptions.

*Mr and Mrs Addams - From "The Addams Family"
*Professor Adelsberg - From the film "Der Fluch der Grünen Augen"
*Mr. Big - From the novel "Live and Let Die" by Ian Fleming
*Miriam Blaylock - From the novel "The Hunger" by Whitley Strieber
*Commander Hamish Bond - Probably James Bond from the works of Ian Fleming. [The character drives an Aston Martin, drinks martinis, "Hamish" is the Scottish version of the name "James", he carries a Walther PPK and works for British Intelligence.]
*Gregor Brastov - From the novel "The Soft Whisper of the Dead" by Charles L. Grant [His style of dress and his white cat are a reference to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, specifically from the movie version of "You Only Live Twice"]
*Cabiria - From the film "Le Notti di Cabiria"
*Bianca Castafiore - From "The Adventures of Tintin" by Hergé
*Lemmy Caution - From the film "Alphaville"
*Marguerite Chopin of Courtempierre - From the film "Vampyr"
*Inspector Clouseau - From the film "The Pink Panther"
*Barnabas Collins - From the television series "Dark Shadows"
*Jonas Cord - From the novel "The Carpetbaggers" by Harold Robbins
*Edmund Cordery - From the novel "The Empire of Fear" by Brian Stableford
*Michael Corleone - From "The Godfather" movies and books
*The Crimson Executioner - From the film "Il Boia Scarlatto"
*Waldemar Daninsky - From the movies of Paul Naschy
*Vivian Darkbloom and Clare Quilty - From the novel "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov
*Dondi - From the comic-strip of the same name
*Count Dracula - From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
*Sergeant Dravot - From "The Man Who Would Be King" by Rudyard Kipling
*Elisabeta of Transylvania - From the film "Bram Stoker's Dracula"
*Erik - From the novel "The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux
*Fantômas - From the works of Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
*Hugh Farnham - from the novel "Bad Dreams" by Kim Newman
*Frankenstein's monster - From the film versions played by Boris Karloff [His steel teeth refer to Jaws and his throwing-hat to Oddjob]
*Doctor Fu Manchu - From the novels by Sax Rohmer
*Lord Greystoke - From the "Tarzan" series by Edgar Rice Burroughs
*Dr. Hichcock - From the film "The Terror of Dr. Hichcock"
*The Jewish golem - From the film ""
*Kent, the football player - Clark Kent, from the "Superman" comics published by DC Comics [But not as we know him; he is identified as a football player from Kansas, and (although his appearance includes several Superman-related injokes) there is no indication that he is Superman (or indeed that Superman exists in the world of the novel). In a particularly subtle joke, several details from the character's backstory were borrowed from the life story of the actor Steve Reeves, who (unlike George Reeves and Christopher Reeve) never portrayed Superman on screen.]
*Count Kernassy - From the film "L'Ultima Preda del Vampiro"
*Rosa Klebb - From the novel "From Russia with Love" by Ian Fleming
*Klove - From the films "Dracula, Prince of Darkness" and "Scars of Dracula"
*Jeddidiah Leland - From the movie "Citizen Kane"
*Doctor Mabuse - From the works of Norbert Jacques
*Malenka - From the film "La Nipote del Vampiro"
*Marcello - From the film "La Dolce Vita"
*Father Lankester Merrin - From the novel "The Exorcist" by William Peter Blatty
*Professor Moriarty - From the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
*Dr. Julius No - From the novel "Dr. No" by Ian Fleming
*Olympia - From "The Sandman" by E. T. A. Hoffmann
*Doctor Septimus Pretorius - From the film "Bride of Frankenstein"
*Katie Reed - A character from "Dracula" who was cut from the final novel
*Tom Ripley - From the "Ripley" novels by Patricia Highsmith
*Lord Ruthven - From the short story "The Vampyre" by Dr. John William Polidori
*Tintin - From "The Adventures of Tintin" by Hergé
*Lady Anibas Vadja - From the film "Las Maschera del Demonio"
*Princess Asa Vadja - From the film "Las Maschera del Demonio"
*Irma Vep - From the film "Les Vampires"
*Edward Weyland - From the novel "The Vampire Tapestry" by Suzy McKee Charnas
*Joshua York - From the novel "Fevre Dream" by George R. R. Martin
*Anthony Zenith - From the Sexton Blake series
*Mater Lachrymarum from Thomas De Quincey's prose poem Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow, as well as Dario Argento's Three Mothers Trilogy.

Historical Persons Appearing in the Novel

*Elizabeth Báthory
*Simone de Beauvoir
*Lavrenti Beria
*Alessandro Cagliostro
*Nicolae Ceauşescu
*Winston Churchill
*General Mark Clark
*Salvador Dalí
*Mel Ferrer
*Errol Flynn
*Sari Gábor
*Rita Hayworth
*Ernest Hemingway
*Audrey Hepburn
*John Huston
*Senator John F. Kennedy
*The Aga Khan
*Nikita Khrushchev
*Dino De Laurentiis
*Gina Lollobrigida
*Sophia Loren
*Clare Boothe Luce
*Bishop Albino Luciani (the future Pope John Paul I)
*Princess Margaret
*Dean Martin
*Yves Montand
*Edgar Allan Poe
*Carlo Ponti
*John Profumo
*Elvis Presley
*Edmund Purdom
*Gilles de Rais
*Jean-Paul Sartre
*Frank Sinatra
*Simone Signoret
*Ilona Szilagy
*Gore Vidal
*Orson Welles

Notes