Dracula Cha Cha Cha

Dracula Cha Cha Cha (US-title: Judgment of Tears)

Author	Kim Newman
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Anno Dracula series
Genre	Alternate history, Horror
Publisher	Avon Books
Publication date	1998
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	291 (paperback)
ISBN	0-380-73229-7
OCLC	42805587
Preceded by	The Bloody Red Baron
Followed by	Johnny Alucard

Dracula Cha Cha Cha (re-titled Judgment of Tears in the US), 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).

The novel's original title is inspired by Bruno Martino's song Dracula Cha Cha Cha, which appears on the album Italian Graffiti (1960/61?) and is performed onscreen in Vincente Minnelli's film Two Weeks in Another Town (1962).

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
• Armand — From Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles
• Mr. Big — From the novel Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming
• Miriam Blaylock — From the novel The Hunger by Whitley Strieber
• Peter Blood — From the film Doctor Blood's Coffin
• Commander Hamish Bond — James Bond from the works of Ian Fleming.^[1]
• Gregor Brastov — From the novel The Soft Whisper of the Dead by Charles L. Grant^[2]
• Cabiria — From the film Le Notti di Cabiria
• Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe) — From the films by José Mojica Marins
• Madame Cassandra — From the film Beverly Hills Vamp
• Bianca Castafiore — From The Adventures of Tintin comics 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 films and novels
• Honoria Cornelius — From the Jerry Cornelius novels by Michael Moorcock
• The Crimson Executioner — From the film Bloody Pit of Horror
• Toby Dammit — From the film Spirits of the Dead
• Waldemar Daninsky — From the films of Paul Naschy
• Vivian Darkbloom and Clare Quilty — From the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Count Karol de Lavud — From the film El Vampiro
• Don Sebastian de Villanueva — From the novels of Les Daniels
• Norma Desmond - from the film Sunset Boulevard
• Dondi — From the comic-strip of the same name
• Count Dracula — From the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Sergeant Dravot — From the novel 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
• Webb Fallon — From the film The Vampire's Ghost
• Fantômas — From the works of Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
• Hugh Farnham — From the novel Bad Dreams by Kim Newman
• Faethor Ferenczy — From the Necroscope novels by Brian Lumley
• Frankenstein's monster — From the film versions played by Boris Karloff^[3]
• Doctor Fu Manchu — From the novels by Sax Rohmer
• Sergeant Ginko — Later Inspector Ginko from the Italian comic Diabolik
• Doctor Génessier — From the film Eyes Without a Face
• Lord Greystoke — From the Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Casper Gutman (a.k.a. 'The Fat Man') —...from the book and films The Maltese Falcon is likely the mentioned 'enormous[...]collector and dealer in rare and unprovenanced artifacts' who might be called-upon to fence some stolen items, which set in fact includes what is likely the Falcon, as well as likely the Seven Stars and the Monkey's Paw.
• Anthony Hancock — From the Tony Hancock film The Rebel
• Dr. Hichcock — From the film The Horrible Dr. Hichcock
• General Iorga — From the films Count Yorga, Vampire and The Return of Count Yorga
• The Jewish golem — From the film The Golem: How He Came into the World
• Kent, the football player — Clark Kent, from the Superman comics published by DC Comics^[4]
• 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 film 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
• Baron Meinster — From the film The Brides of Dracula
• Father Lankester Merrin — From the novel The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
• Count Mitterhouse — From the film Vampire Circus
• Luna Mora — From the film Mark of the Vampire
• Professor Moriarty — From the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Dr. Julius No — From the novel Dr. No by Ian Fleming
• Count Oblensky — From the film The Horrible Sexy Vampire
• Olympia — From the short story The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffmann
• Dr. Orlof — From the film The Awful Dr. Orlof
• Doctor Septimus Pretorius — From the film Bride of Frankenstein
• Colonel Pyat — From the Pyat Quartet by Michael Moorcock
• Hamer Radshaw — From the film Fame Is the Spur
• Kate Reed — A character from Dracula who was cut from the final novel
• Richmond Reed — From the film Vampire Hookers
• Tom Ripley — From the "Ripley" novels by Patricia Highsmith
• Drago Robles — From the film Curse of the Undead
• Lord Ruthven — From the short story The Vampyre by Dr. John William Polidori
• Tintin — From The Adventures of Tintin comics by Hergé
• Lady Anibas Vadja — From the film La Maschera del Demonio
• Princess Asa Vadja — From the film La Maschera del Demonio
• Irma Vep — From the film Les Vampires
• Radu Vladislas — From the film Subspecies and its sequels
• Anton Voytek — From the 1979 TV series Vampire
• Herbert West - From the short story Herbert West–Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft
• Edward Weyland — From the novel The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas
• Joshua York — From the novel Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin
• Don Simon Ysidro — From the "James Asher, Vampire" novels by Barbara Hambley
• 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 The Three Mothers trilogy.
• Both The Incredible Hulk and Iron Fist of Marvel Comics are alluded to in the final chapters of the book (specifically the short story Aquarius published in the new Titan Books edition of the story), as Kate Reed is mentioned as having read about Gamma Bomb testing (though the location was changed to taking place in India, as opposed to the Nevada desert) and later ruminating about mythical lost cities, including K'un L'un, the mystical village in the Himalayas where Iron Fist received his training.

Historical persons appearing in the novel

• Anthony Armstrong-Jones
• Elizabeth Báthory
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Lavrenti Beria (Note that it is implied that he is alive in the novel's 1959;in our world, he was killed in 1953.)
• Junio Valerio Borghese
• Asa Briggs
• Alessandro Cagliostro
• Nicolae Ceauşescu
• R. Chetwynd-Hayes
• Winston Churchill
• Alan Clark
• Mark W. Clark
• Salvador Dalí
• Charles de Gaulle
• Gilles de Rais
• Kirk Douglas
• Amintore Fanfani
• Daniel Farson
• Mel Ferrer
• Errol Flynn
• Sari Gábor
• Andrey Gromyko
• Rita Hayworth
• Ernest Hemingway
• Audrey Hepburn
• Valerie Hobson (under her married name Valerie Profumo)
• John Huston
• John F. Kennedy
• Ludovic Kennedy
• The Aga Khan
• Nikita Khrushchev
• Fritz Lang
• Dino De Laurentiis
• Gina Lollobrigida
• Sophia Loren
• Clare Boothe Luce
• Bishop Albino Luciani (the future Pope John Paul I)
• Magda Lupescu
• Princess Margaret
• Dean Martin
• Enrico Mattei
• Yves Montand
• Alberto Moravia
• John Osborne
• Pier Paolo Pasolini
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Carlo Ponti
• Enoch Powell
• John Profumo
• Elvis Presley
• Edmund Purdom
• Gilles de Rais
• Count of St. Germain
• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Moira Shearer
• Frank Sinatra
• Simone Signoret
• Lytton Strachey
• Montague Summers
• Ilona Szilagy
• Palmiro Togliatti
• Totò
• Gore Vidal
• Orson Welles
• Dennis Wheatley
• Colin Wilson

Notes

1. 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. It is also mentioned that he was turned into a vampire by Sgt. Dravot, who was also played by Sean Connery; and Bond's physical change at the end of the novel seems to imply that he begun the book resembling Sean Connery and ended looking like Roger Moore.
2. 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
3. His steel teeth refer to Jaws and his throwing-hat to Oddjob
4. 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.