The Embrace: A True Vampire Story - Softcover

Jones, Aphrodite

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671034677 ISBN 13: 9780671034672

Publisher: Pocket, 2000

Synopsis

A chilling inside study of a teenage vampire cult examines the vicious murders of Rick and Ruth Wendorf by Rod Ferrell, a high-school classmate of the Wendorfs' daughter and the self-proclaimed leader of the "Dark Army," who killed the couple as part of a nightmarish human sacrifice. Reprint.

About this title

Review:

The "Vampire Clan" was a loosely knit gang of Southern U.S. teenagers who played at being outcasts and goths, and then pretended to be vampires. The twisted fantasies and dark mind of their young leader, Rod Ferrell, dominate The Embrace. Aphrodite Jones wastes no time in getting inside the troubled 16-year-old's head, detailing his elaborate delusions (he sometimes claims to be 500 years old; at other points, he was born 60,000 years ago and "sent to earth to destroy it") and his eerie abilities to control other troubled souls. With a Jim Jones-like knack for bizarre showmanship, Ferrell picked up followers and "true loves" with ease, then led his small, unmerry band on a mission from his home base in Kentucky to pick up yet another groupie--15-year-old Heather Wendorf--in Florida. The journey ended in violence in 1996, however, when Ferrell decided to kill Heather's parents with a crowbar. The group (Heather in tow) fled to New Orleans, where Rod promised his "vampire friends" would take them in; they were arrested a few days later. Ferrell, who now holds the record as the youngest inmate on death row, still insists he's the Antichrist.

Jones's account is rather spare, but feels balanced and honest. Like untold thousands of other American youths, Ferrell had the requisite bad childhood and unpleasant memories to later cause him both melancholy and grief. But unlike most of his peers, Rod Ferrell seems to have been born with a genius intelligence and the ability to memorize names, accents, and customs from different eras and places with ease, along with a talent to "perform" what he claimed to be. That he also happened to be deranged shouldn't be overlooked, but the real tragedy and concern here is that there might exist a rip in the fabric of our society large enough to allow healthy, normal teenagers like his group to fall through the tear and into the arms of animalistic hucksters like Rod Ferrell. --Tjames Madison

About the Author:

Aphrodite Jones is the author of the New York Times bestseller Cruel Sacrifice; the bestseller The FBI Killer, which was made into an ABC-TV movie titled Betrayed by Love, starring Patricia Arquette; All She Wanted; and Della's Web. She began her professional writing career at age twenty-one, with a nationally syndicated column for United Feature Syndicate. A published journalist for more than twenty years, she has also worked as a radio news director, lectured about writing as an assistant professor of English, and, for the last decade, has devoted herself to human interest and hard-news stories. Born in Chicago, raised in New York, and schooled in Los Angeles, Jones now works from her home in West Hollywood. Visit her Web site at www.aphroditejones.com.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0671034677
• ISBN 13: 9780671034672
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448