Randolph "Dilda" Carter

Rare Grant misstep in trying to mash-up 19th Century Oxrun Station with Hammer Horror flicks. Meandering mess of a (short) plot starts out pretty well as the train pulls into town but falters after that. What looks to be a pretty good story about an old friend that returns from Europe "tainted" devolves into the all too predictable tag-along Dracula (Count Brastov) archetype lookin' for a new home among the suckers in the New World. A few early eerie moments lead to a just-get-on-with-it attitude and the vampires prove much too easy to vanquish, even when in a half-stupor. The twist "oops we forgot about that guy who got turned into a vampire" ending is almost a joke.Just for laughs count the number of times someone pulls the: "I could have sworn I just opened/closed that" routine.I know Grant intended this as a sort of tongue in cheek parody of the Hammer sub-genre, but the novel works as neither humor nor horror.