If the family don't want to publicly reveal the death, what right do the press have to announce it?

It will definitely be made public. The question is whether it will be through a publisher/family statement, or some scummy reporter that spends their time looking over death registrations.

Isn't he only really a recluse insofar as he doesn't do public appearances? It seems he became friends with Salman Rushdie (or at least met with him) after the fatwa. So it's not like there aren't people who have contact with him.

J.D. Salinger's death was announced in 2010 by a literary representative, even though he hadn't published anything since 1965.

Ask yourself this question, 'Would you rather a book be too short, or too long?'

Some stories work better in a short format. e.g. Sherlock Holmes, while short, feel perfect for the stories being told. I really don't think I would like some Tom Clancy sized novel with Holmes and Watson. For me personally, there's nothing worse than a book which feels as though the author added in lots of filler to hit a page count.

I wouldn't saying goofy, the early chapters from Jonathan's diary, and The Demeter log are pretty creepy.

The one thing that works against us, is we are reading a book which we probably know far too much about already, diluting alot of the suspense. Plus medical science has moved on a lot since Bram Stoker's time. Bloodletting was still a somewhat common practice in the 1800s, though it was in decline.

I do feel like the Lucy parts did start to drag, though. I do wonder if the story wouldn't have worked better as a novella.

I started reading it recently, having spent years reading about how Van Helsing is annoying. So I was kind of surprised how I didn't find him annoying or hard to understand when I reached his part in the book.

The zookeeper on the other hand, I have no idea what that guy was talking about. It was like reading Aramaic translated into Latin, then translated into Jimmy Nail (a dialetic of Gordie, spoken by few, and understood by far less).