Unearthing the forgotten history of American vampires and other death-defiers in Exhumed

All among the living and undead know Count Dracula.But vampires have a long and more established pedigree than readers of Bram Stoker may recognize.

These bloodsuckers have even made their ways to American shores.In his new book, “Exhumed: Unearthing the History of the American Vampire” (Running Press), Aaron Mahnke starts with the “vampire panic” of Rhode Island in the 1890s — which appears to have inspired Stoker — before diving deep into the historic and folkloric past.Mahnke takes us to backwaters across the globe.Among the most intriguing is the town of Kisiljevo, where more than 150 years before the American vampire panic there was a Serbian one.

In this little village, nine people had died from a mysterious illness.“Anyone who studies history would view this sort of story as ‘normal’ for the early 18th century,” Mahnke writes.But the villagers added a twist: During their illness, each of the dead had sworn they were visited in their sleep by a man who tried to strangle them in their sleep: Peter Blagojević.

Weirder still, Blagojević had died 10 weeks before the rash of deaths began.The villagers of Kisiljevo took the only sensible action — they exhumed Blagojević’s corpse to make sure he was really and truly dead.“Once dug up, they were shocked to see that the body had almost no signs of decay,” Mahnke writes.“It didn’t even smell, as a normal corpse should.

Looking closer, the men could swear that Peter’s nails and hair had grown, and blood could clear be seen around his mouth.”Their next step was logical enough.“The villagers responded by crafting a sharpened stake, which they pounded into the corpse’s heart.”This is a little taste of the gruesome stories that Mahnke offers in “Exhumed.”The subtitle of “Exhumed” is a little misleading.Bloodsuckers are, indeed, a significant element in the book, and it does build toward a vampiric climax.

But vampires — American or otherwise — are not really the c...