Night Watch, by Sergei Lukyanenko

****

An excerpt of a review posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

Years before emotionally stunted vampires first sparkled in idyllic mountain meadows, bloodthirsty creatures of the night stalked the streets of Moscow in search of human prey—and they are not the only ones.  To the vampires, shape shifters, and dark sorcerers of the world, humans are a commodity, a resource to be exploited by any means necessary to any end deemed desirable.  The only thing restraining these “Dark Ones” is a treaty with the other side—the agents of Light.  From sunset to sunrise, the Night Watch (“Light Ones”) patrols the city, monitoring the Dark Ones’ compliance with the treaty and, if necessary, punishing the less compliant.  When the sun rises, the Day Watch (Dark Ones) takes over, enforcing the treaty on the Light Ones.  And so the never-ending battle between good and evil has slowed to a Cold War—still deeply serious and intense—but tempered by the restrictions of the treaty.

Full review available here.