Memnoch the Devil

Lestat hunts through New York and kills a ruthless mobster named Roger. Roger's ghost comes back with a request: Lestat is to look after his daughter Dora, a charismatic televangelist.

Before long Lestat meets a figure who gives his name as Memnoch and claims to be the Devil. Memnoch wants him as a companion and offers him a place at his side.

To win him over, Memnoch leads Lestat through heaven, hell and the history of creation. His argument is that God has been cruel and negligent, and he sets out to prove it scene by scene.

This is the fifth novel in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, following The Tale of the Body Thief, and Knopf first published it in 1995. Theological argument fills most of the pages, and Lestat mostly listens with doubt. Anyone hoping for the usual vampire plotting of the series may find it thin. Those drawn to its ambition, and to its borrowings from Melmoth the Wanderer, tend to rate it higher.

The question running through the book is whether Lestat will accept the Devil's case against God.