Uprising Scott Mariani (Avon, £6.99) Vampires are in fashion, in case you hadn’t noticed, and it was only a matter of time before they came to Oxford. Thriller writer Mariani, who lives in Wales, is a former Oxford student who used the city as a backdrop in one of his first books featuring detective Ben Hope. Now he has branched out with Uprising, the first in a planned series featuring the global Vampire Federation, formed by vampires anxious to avoid detection by humans. Special agent Alex Bishop is authorised to hunt down vampires who break the law, from Venice to South Oxfordshire. The old traditions are history, but when a poor young virgin called Kate decides to walk back to Wallingford after an argument with her boyfriend, we can guess what will happen next. We will apparently see more of boyfriend Dec Maddon in the next book.