“Spawn of the Vampire” by N. Wesley Firth (published 1946 in Britain by Bear Hudson Ltd.) is a semi-silly / crime tale involving newlyweds on their honeymoon, in the Old Country.
The cover art is by H. W. Perl.
While there, they meet an actress, and a man; the latter is researching claims that a vampire exists in the vicinity. He learns firsthand the truth; the vampire hypnotizes and mentally forces him to run off a cliff. Splat!
The newlywed husband is mortified by the local happenings and superstitions, but, when his own wife goes missing, all fingers point to the supposed vampire.
Firth concludes this horror tale in stereotypical fashion: eliminate the villain and then they flee the area, only to arrive in ANOTHER haunted town facing their OWN vampire crisis!!!
An amusing thriller and sought-after by hardcore vampire collectors.
Personally, I enjoy Firth’s writing style, and if anyone has a Firth short story or novel, I am interested in reading more of his works. Besides writing for all genres under N. Wesley Firth, he supplied westerns as “Joel Johnson” and “Bert Forde,” etc., and crime stories as “Earl Ellison” and “Leslie Halward” (among several other pseudonyms he used during his brief writing career).
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When you said ” a MUST for all hardcover vampire collecting enthusiasts” did you mean “hardcore,” or is this in fact a (cheap!) Bear Hudson hc? (I’ve got a paperback with this cover art, but don’t recall seeing/hearing of a hardcover.) Afraid I’ve never read it, but it sounds like moderate fun.
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And actually “hardcore” sounds like an awkward name for vampire fans, since what with all that bloating blood and aged flesh, I”d think vampires would be more “squishycore.” Of course, most horror figures do seem to tend to the squishy side of the ledger — mummies, sea monsters, blobs, giant insects, etc. as well as vamps. “Hardcore” is more what you’d think fans of, say, science fictional “battle suit” military stories would be into.
I’m not sure what sort of tropes would appeal to “mediumcore” readers. (Aside from seance fiction, d’oh.)
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he meant hardcore…
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Hello Denny,
Your inquiry threw me. The blog clearly states “hardcore,” so I retrieved the email and note that my text was changed. Quite annoyed by that. In fact, while typing this reply, this stupid smart phone has attempted to change my choice of words no less than 9 times thus far. Obviously, I could (or perhaps, “should”) turn off the autocorrect function, and allow myself to own any typos made by my clumsy fingers 🙂 BUT, that aside, it made for some amusing dialogue on your part which had me grinning. What’s embarrassing is that that email went out to over 300 accounts (sigh).
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