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Californian James Falcon sits and writes his memoirs for his Grandson, tales of exploits that he has been ordered by his Government never to reveal. The son of Romanian immigrants and brought up hearing the folktales of that region from his mother, in 1943 he writes a college paper regarding the strigoï. He writes it as a joke but it receives a limited publication. US counter-intelligence approaches him and, not having a real choice in the matter, he ends up in Europe, tracking down the monsters that are infiltrating Resistance Cells and spreading their infection on behalf of the Nazis.

One powerful strigoï, Dorin Dorca, escapes and in 1957 James is called upon by his Government once more. Dorca is infecting people in London and The US and UK want him stopped before the Russians get wind of it and track the creature down first.

This book is an astounding read, but being somewhat of a detective story as well as a horror novel I do not want to reveal too much. What I can reveal, without blowing the book, is the wonderful way that Masterton has treated the vampire (or Screechers, as James refers to them) myth.

His vampires are strigoï, and he makes a definitive distinction between strigoï vii and strigoï mort – an unusual move in itself. In Masterton’s version the vii are infected but alive, desperate to drink blood they appear to be rotting but are incapable of spreading their infection. Masterton points out that lack of a reflection is a myth but, as silver is so pure, when looked at in a silver mirror the strigoï vii look like they were before infection.

When the rot is advanced a strigoï vii will beg a strigoï mort, a dead vampire, to be allowed to drink its blood once more. The strigoï morts infect humans through either saliva or blood but their blood is poisonous to a vii and completes the transformation to mort. Once a mort they appear beautiful, but the silvered mirror reflects their true face (Masterton suggests, in the novel, that Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey was based on stories of the strigoï).

Both are strong and fast, though the mort is stronger and faster, and the mort can pass through the thinnest of openings. Depending on the strigoï they might be able to run up walls and crawl upon ceilings. They can both daywalk, in fact the mort has poor night vision and must create a mystical pendant to improve its night vision. Masterton makes the distinction between strigoï and nosferatu, who cannot venture into the sun, as different types of vampires.

James has a vampire hunting kit and a pistol whose bullets, allegedly, are made from the goblet drunk from by the disciples at the last supper. The kit itself contains a Romanian bible, a flask of holy oil, silver thumb and toe screws, a silver compass (which acts as a strigoï compass), a silver wire whip, a surgical saw, mustard seeds, paint (to paint extra eyes upon dogs), a silver mirror, dental forceps, a sculptor’s mallet and more importantly three nine inch nails. The nails allegedly were the nails used to nail Christ to the cross. The nails, hammered through the eyes and into the brain, will paralyse the vampire.

You see, in this, the strigoï are difficult, if not impossible, to kill. A strigoï must have its head sawed off. A vii would then have its body buried in consecrated ground whereas a mort must be cut into at least four pieces, each piece buried separately. The head is then boiled until the flesh sloughs away and the brains turn to broth. It is also clear that there is definitive supernatural element to this story, whilst they talk of infection the story is not science based.

The strigoï are animalistic and violent but also fiercely intelligent. In England they are ripping whole families, sometimes more, apart, tearing open their chests, removing the hearts and drinking from the aorta.

Of course, the way strigoï are portrayed by Masterton is different to the myth form I know, as they were subtly portrayed in the masterpiece Viy (1967). That said, the author is well within his/her rights to play with the myth – especially if it works – and there are similes between myth and Masterton’s vision. In myth the strigoï vii are essentially witches and psychic vampires, portrayed by hags. Whilst Masterton creates a blood drinking, rotting vampire there is a resonance with the concept of the hag. Again, in the myths, the strigoï mort is the vampire, as we more properly know them, and certainly – whilst blood drinking was stripped from the film – Viy portrays the mort as a beautiful young girl. Masterton’s morts achieve a perfect visage.

There is more that Masterton has done with the myth, but to reveal it might reveal too much plot. Suffice it to say that he has taken the vampire and recreated it as a vicious killer, something that, again, can be terrifying. This book needs to be turned into a film, by a filmmaker willing and brave enough to graphically follow the book – ratings be damned.

The characterisation is strong, the characters believable and, more importantly, flawed and the writing style is excellent. 8.5 out of 10 for a book that has reinvented the myth and injected much of the horror that seems, sadly, to have been missing in the endless deluge of vampire romances and books about vampires with consciences.

When I was only three, my father left.
My mother had to bring me up alone, but I was unaware
Because I had a playmate, Susan,
Older than me, but pretty, and with braided hair

When I was four my father sent no money
My mother managed, though. We ate meat every day.
But Susan disappeared. I missed her.
‘You made her up,’ my mother said. ‘That’s why she’s gone away.’ She gave her house to me, and I repainted it, and changed the locks
But when I went to plant a yew hedge in the garden
I came across a buried cardboard box.

Inside the box I found a young child’s bones
All jumbled up, and scratched, as if with some sharp knife
And Susan’s plastic hair-grips, too.
So she was real, my made-up playmate, and she died to give me life.

'Now available in Kindle or Audible. (But be advised...this is NOT a horror novel, so I don't want to disappoint any reader expecting a supernatural demon to pop up.) What would happen if America and Russia redefined their spheres of influence? If the US pulled their troops out of Europe? Such a radical redrafting of the political map would have consequences for all those involved.

'Charles Krogh thought he had left the intelligence world for good, but before long finds himself immersed back in the vast invisible game without rules, the game of deception and bluff...the game without which the world can never be safe...or at peace.

'Nicholas Reed, brutally murdered by a stone-cold KGB killer - what did he know? Marshal T. K. Golovanov, hero of the Soviet Union and one of the most powerful men in the world - why is he jeopardising the future of his country with a female agent? Michael Townshend, an English businessman on a visit to a Moscow trade fair - what is the real reason for his trip? Win or lose, their lives are all a sacrifice...'

And here's a review:

Carly
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very chilling note on what is happening even today. I first read this book in the mid eighties, just after returning from being stationed in Germany... WEST Germany as it still was then. So this book has an enhanced meaning for me. At the time I found it interesting as a fascinating hypothetical.

I found it frightening and depressing almost forty years later, in light of everything that is happening in Ukraine. I keep thinking to myself "Doesn't ANYONE remember Poland in 1939 (??!)" Doesn't anyone realize the price for indifference and isolationism?

Have we really learned so little?.

The Devil's Book

Yes, the Devil has a Bible, and it’s called The Book
I know you may be tempted, boy, to take a look
It tells you how to sin on every page
No matter your religion or your age
It tells you how to steal and cheat and lie
No matter if you make your lovers cry

It’s called The Book
It’s called The Book
Once you have read it you’ll be on the hook

Maybe you’ve always acted generous and kind
But you can trick your friends and rob them blind
You may be turned away from Heaven’s gate
But you can be unfaithful – you can fornicate
With any man or woman who might catch your eyes
Or any sheep or goat that you can terrorise

It’s called The Book
It’s called The Book
Once you have read it, boy, you’re on the hook

The Book will make you rich as hell, and greedy
You won’t care if a starving child is needy
You won’t care if you take a girl’s virginity
You’ll simply laugh and curse the Holy Trinity
Okay, you may repent, and throw The Book into the fire
But only you will catch alight, you and your warped desire

It’s called The Book
It’s called The Book
From page one, you’ll be caught up on its evil hook'