Birth of a Killer (The Saga of Larten Crepsley, Book 1) - Hardcover

“His writing is slick, his dialogue sharp and clever, his plotting immaculate. His books ooze with the kind of creepy, dark atmosphere and powerful characters that young teenage readers lap up. Shan is honing his craft with every book, and I look forward to the next gore-fest with relish.”
Irish Independent

“Forget Stephen King, this author's the master of scaring children.”
The Big Issue in Scotland

“A tantalising start to the series and a must-read for Darren Shan fans.”
Books Quarterly

Following the massive success of the Demonata series, Darren Shan is back where it all started – telling the life story of the vampire Larten Crepsley. Spanning centuries and continents, taking in sea voyages, murder, war and love, this is the epic, bloodsoaked tale of a vampire who started out a nobody... and ended up changing the world forever.

When Larten escapes the terrible workhouse in which he toils, he doesn’t know that he is running from an early death... into another kind of transformation. After meeting the mysterious vampire Seba Nile while sheltering for the night in a crypt, Larten finds himself drawn into the shadowy world of the vampire Clan. As he travels and learns, Larten finds himself enjoying the adventure he has always dreamed of, seeing a world beyond any he suspected in his poverty-stricken youth.

But Larten begins to discover something else, too. Much like death, becoming a vampire is something you can’t come back from...