The Dracula Dossier: A Novel of Suspense - James Reese

This book is a well-executed riff on the Dracula ouevre - probably the first which does not involve vampires at all.  The conceit is that it's a set of papers left by Stoker several years before writing D which detail his encounter (with several other Victorian personages) with a possessed American doctor who commits the Jack the Ripper murders.  His experiences in this episode provide details and ideas and phrases that later show up in Dracula, especially in the vampire hunters' pursuit of Dracula around London.  Reese's command of the historical details of Stoker's life is impressive.  He covers Stoker's love/hate relationship with his employer Henry Irving, his relationships with various other players, and constantly drops in useful footnotes that explain what Stoker is talking about 9and frequently what Stoker is conspicuously not talking about).
Still, the book dragged on for a while before finally finishing up, and I started to get a little tired of the story.  The possession was presented with a definite supernatural angle that made is consistently difficult to really enter into the spirit of the book.  Chasing an insane butcher around London is one thing - chasing a doctor whom Stoker knows firsthand to be not actually mad but simply possessed by the spirit of an Egyptian demon is another.