A trip to England with her best friend sounds like heaven to 12-year-old Christine Bellamy, until she discovers her younger brother Hal is invited too. Upon arrival in London, the trio find themselves in a house festooned with garlic. Their host, Peter Cubbington-Smith, not only insists that vampires exist, but that they are “very active right now.” He isn’t kidding, but author David Poulsen is, all the way through The Vampire’s Visit. The children are reluctantly caught between two warring groups of vampires whose fight centres on a tragedy that happened in the Cubbington-Smith family 300 years before. This doesn’t sound like promising material for comedy, but Poulsen invests Chris, his first person narrator, with a deadpan sense of humour and the timing of a stand-up comedian.

Poulsen maintains a fine pace in his short chapters, drawing young readers along with equal measures of humour and suspense. This is light fiction, but it is written with care. The characters are vivid and likeable. As Chris, her friend Pepper, and Hal react to the vampires, Poulsen shows respect for his readers’ intelligence by addressing the problem of disbelief. The book is similar to James Howe’s wildly popular Bunnicula series, but the absence of talking pets, and the presence of real vampires in Poulsen’s work should draw a slightly older audience of pre-teens.

It is a relief to find light fiction about the supernatural written without any trace of a cynical intent to simply fill a slot in the market. The Vampire’s Visit will be a quick read for the dedicated reader, but may prove most useful as a well-crafted lure to draw Goosebumps addicts and reluctant readers toward work with literary merit.