Andy Bishop's quest begins promisingly when he leaves Columbus, Ohio, in 1914 after graduating from the University of Notre Dame. In Austria, Hungary, his goals are threefold: make contact with distant Austrian relatives, practice his nascent journalistic skills, and discover why his aristocratic ancestor, Matthias zu Windischgratz, immigrated to America so long ago. The scenery changes drastically as Andy witnesses the last stand of imperial Austrian society. He arrives just three weeks before the assassination of the Kaiser's nephew, the Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie. This event sparks the fateful slide toward world war and chaos for both family and friends. Andy's fateful decision to remain in the doomed Habsburg Empire after the war begins-and his irresistible attraction to a young Austrian countess-lead him to Budapest, Rome, and finally Paris, as Europe is convulsed by the greatest war since the defeat of Napoleon. Told from the perspective of Andy Bishop, "An American in Vienna" presents historical insight into the Austrian court, royal society, and the demise of a once-powerful empire as it becomes embroiled in the Great War.

For forty-three years, Francis I of Austria ruled a vast heterogenous Empire that came to dominate the continent of Europe. Ascending Charlemagne's thousand-year throne of the Holy Roman Empire at the age of twenty-four on the unexpected death of his father, this scion of the ancient Habsburg dynasty became the first Emperor of Austria and for two years, the only Double Emperor in history. Both the father in law of Napoleon Bonaparte and his chief rival for dominance of the continent of Europe, Francis eventually led a coalition of nations to Paris in 1814 and sent Napoleon into exile. The exiled Napoleon's only son and heir lived with his grandfather thereafter in Vienna until his tragic early death. Kings, ministers, generals and the glitterati of Europe gathered under his watchful eye at the Congress of Vienna to decide the fate of a continent in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars in which he played a pivotal role. The Congress saw the emergence of his new Austrian Empire as the most dominant power in continental Europe until long after his death twenty years later. A devoted husband, father and grandfather, his modest lifestyle and simple tastes that set the tone of the Biedermeier era concealed a complex and calculating ruler whose initial, cautious liberalism gradually evolved into a stoic conservatism. No other life-biography in English has been written about this mysterious but powerful figure of early 19th century Europe whom Metternich and Radetzky called their master.

Kalvary Istvan, widower and former Hungarian cavalry colonel, hopes for a quiet life when he accepts the position of chief of police in the Carpathian city of Bistritz. It's no less than a man deserves after years of service to his Kaiser and king. Sadly, Istvan's going to be disappointed. Someone or something haunts the streets of Bistritz and the surrounding Transylvanian mountains. Ask Istvan's new colleague, Gabor Kasza of the Royal Hungarian Gendarmerie, and he'd say evidence points to a well-established serial killer, possibly hidden among the oppressed and reviled Roma, who call the nearby Borgo Pass home. Ask Freudian devotee Baron Krafft-Ebing and he'd agree, although his interest lies more in studying the psychopath's mind than bringing him to justice. Ask the mountain people of the Carpathians, however, and they'd disagree. They'd point to the long history of killings and disappearances in the region, which stretch back longer than any one man's lifetime. They'd speak in hushed voices of the Roma's supposed master, and an abandoned castle where he lives with his demonic wives. The bravest residents might even risk whispering a name: Dracula. Kalvary Istvan, like Kasza and Krafft-Ebing, considers himself a modern nineteenth-century man, with little time for legends and superstitions, but as he and Kasza pursue their investigation, reason and deduction begin to give way to dark, ancient truths and local belief. At once a thrilling detective yarn and intriguing backstory to Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Carpathian Assignment immerses readers in the rich setting of the Hungarian kingdom at the end of the nineteenth century, a nation in which science and logic clash with centuries of cultural conviction and superstition."

Andy Bishop's quest begins promisingly when he leaves Columbus, Ohio, in 1914 after graduating from the University of Notre Dame. In Austria, Hungary, his goals are threefold: make contact with distant Austrian relatives, practice his nascent journalistic skills, and discover why his aristocratic ancestor, Matthias zu Windischgratz, immigrated to America so long ago. The scenery changes drastically as Andy witnesses the last stand of imperial Austrian society. He arrives just three weeks before the assassination of the Kaiser's nephew, the Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie. This event sparks the fateful slide toward world war and chaos for both family and friends. Andy's fateful decision to remain in the doomed Habsburg Empire after the war begins-and his irresistible attraction to a young Austrian countess-lead him to Budapest, Rome, and finally Paris, as Europe is convulsed by the greatest war since the defeat of Napoleon. Told from the perspective of Andy Bishop, "An American in Vienna" presents historical insight into the Austrian court, royal society, and the demise of a once-powerful empire as it becomes embroiled in the Great War.