Head of the CDC's rapid-response team, the Canary Project, Eph is a newly-divorced father attempting to balance the custody battle over his son Zack with his duties as an epidemiologist.

Unable to reconcile the symptoms of the newly-infected airline passengers with standard disease pathology, Eph is convinced of the reality of vampires by Abraham Setrakian.

She and Eph have been attempting an office romance with mixed success, complicated by their high-stress medical careers and Goodweather's lingering melancholy over his looming divorce.

A Romanian Jew (partly of Armenian descent), Setrakian was held in the Treblinka extermination camp during the Second World War, where he became aware of the Master feeding on the weak and sickly inmates.

Originally a professor of East European literature and mythology at the University of Vienna, Setrakian was dismissed and forced to go into hiding after refusing to help Eldritch Palmer locate the Master.

His name is a combination taken from Abraham Van Helsing from Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula and animatronics engineer Mark Setrakian who Del Toro has worked with on multiple projects.

Through the cooperation of Eldritch Palmer, promising the dying billionaire immortality, the Master has gained unlimited financial and political power to ensure the success of his plan.

A Mexican gang member fresh out of prison, Gus is attacked by a newly mutated vampire on the streets of Times Square and is subsequently arrested by the police after throwing the creature under a truck.

The elderly tycoon's fear of death leads him to make a pact with the Master, trading his vast fortune, political influence, and the fate of the human race in exchange for an undead place at the vampire king's side.

(His name is an in-joke reference to the 1965 Nebula Prize nominated novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick)[1] In the television series, he is played by Jonathan Hyde.

His insistence upon wearing a Navy-style Public Health Service uniform, combined with his white goatee, make him resemble a "combat-decorated Colonel Sanders."

His response to the Boeing 777 crisis makes it clear he is a politician first and a doctor second, more concerned with maintaining public order and the CDC's reputation than acknowledging the growing number of anomalies that point to something more sinister taking place.

In order to avoid news of the vampire infestation leaking out prematurely, Palmer has Kent and Gus retrieve the body of Captain Redfern and dispose of it.

Eph's estranged wife and current opponent in a drawn-out custody battle over their only son, Kelly is a public school teacher and fiercely protective mother, pulling no punches in her attempt to paint her husband as the less suitable parent.

The review praises the novel's "arresting start" and frequently alludes to Guillermo del Toro's career as a film director by comparing the novel to a Hollywood movie.

[2] Xan Brooks of The Guardian calls the novel "a pulpy, apocalyptic fable" and a "fast-paced, high-concept outing that seems tailor-made for either a big-screen adaptation or - as Hogan has enthused - 'a long-form, cable-type TV series'.

[4] Jeff Jensen, reviewing The Strain for Entertainment Weekly, wished for more evidence of del Toro's participation, saying, "It's hard to believe he found time for such an ambitious project — and after reading the book, it seems clear he didn't.

"[5] Writer David Lapham and artist Mike Huddleston[6] adapted the novel into an 11-issue story arc for the eponymous comic-book series from Dark Horse Comics.