Richard Tate – The Dead Travel Fast (Sphere, 1971)
Problems beset a film crew shooting a new version of “Dracula” in the Carpathian Mountains. Unbeknown to each other, the cast are being independently blackmailed, everybody is receiving threats, and the director has just been gruesomely done away with. There also appears to be a vampire lurking about the village, judging by the state of the lead actress’s jugular. Unfortunately, Occult detective Marcus Obadiah makes it his business to investigate, and he’s such a shrewdie you just know he’ll put a stop to all the fun and games.
My abiding memory of this book is the grotesque image of one of the corpses after a particularly sadistic murder.
‘Richard Tate’ was a psuedonym of Anthony Masters, author of the non-fiction book The Natural History Of The Vampire (Mayflower, 1972) and editor of Cries Of Terror (Arrow, 1976)
Sordid Spheres! 