BLOOD CRIME

A veteran police inspector in Barcelona must hunt down a vampire amid the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. Honest to God.

When the bodies of a priest and a young boy are found butchered and exsanguinated, the authorities at first wonder if this is an extreme version of the violence anarchists are bringing against the clergy in the civil war. But the circumstances are too strange, and the investigator in charge soon finds himself navigating not only the dangers of the killer he is hunting, but political pressure and the ever present threat of the war itself. If this weren't enough, there's a subplot with a 13-year-old convent novice who becomes a target of the murderer. As William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist showed, religion is a great way for hacks to employ the queasiest exploitation techniques. It's not religion but history used to justify the grue here. And yet it doesn't relieve the dullness. Does anyone expect a good time when confronted with a line like "They were celebrating a special liturgy to mark Sister Adoració's one-hundredth birthday" or "The novice enjoyed every laundry-related chore and implement: the stones used for pleating, the metal and wood irons for pressing garments, the different techniques for sewing and spinning"?

If you've ever wondered what it's like to feel simultaneously bored and nauseous, this is the book for you.