'Bloodthirst' (210 pp) was published by Hamlyn (UK) in September, 1979.
'Mark Ronson' was the pseudonym of New Zealand author Marc Elward Alexander (b. 1929), who wrote a large number of paperback horror novels during the 70s and 80s, including including Ghoul (1980), Plague Pit (1981), and The Dark Domain (1985).
'Bloodthirst' opens with a prologue, set during the Second World War, in the Winter of 1945. A group of German soldiers are in retreat on the Eastern Front, and decide to take refuge for the night in a remote cemetery. Among the interred is a man named Nadasdy, the husband of the notorious 'vampire Countess': Elizabeth Bathory, who was executed in 1614 for allegedly murdering as many as 650 young women in an effort to retain her youth. Events within the cemetery take a fateful turn for the hapless Germans...........
The narrative then shifts to the present day (i.e., 1979) and a London hospital, where young neurologist Dr Peter Pilgrim is studying narcoleptic children (?!) in the hopes of finding a cure.
A recent arrival to the hospital is a seemingly angelic little Swedish girl named Britt Hallstrom. Dr Pilgrim and the hospital staff soon are confronted with a series of bizarre incidents which threaten the lives and welfare of the patients, incidents which have at their center Britt Hallstrom.
Pilgrim is convinced that a novel theory may explain these events: the thirst for human blood that underlies the ancient concept of vampirism may in fact be a communicable disease transmitted through saliva.
The director of the hospital, a prig named Dr. Henry Beresford, admonishes Pilgrim for embracing 'crank' theories, and warns him that continuing to promote such nonsense can damage the younger physician's career.
But as events unfold in the South of France, and in the trackless forests of Finland, Pilgrim comes to believe that his theory may be correct........with implications that portend disaster for Mankind.................
As a 'vampire' novel, I found 'Bloodthirst' to be mediocre. The opening chapters provide the reader with an interesting premise, but all to quickly the narrative takes on an ad hoc quality as the author tosses in poorly connected episodes of 'bloodthirst' mayhem, before transitioning in the middle chapters into a Gothic romance (?!) set in the Camargue region of France.
By the time the narrative re-seats itself and continues its horror theme, the page limit threatens, and the denouement consequently has a rushed quality, one more in keeping with a 70s spy novel than a vampire novel.
Summing up, 'Bloodthirst' is neither an overlooked gem of vampire literature, nor a worthy entry in the 'Paperbacks from Hell' canon. I would avoid this one unless you are dedicated to reading every UK horror paperback ever released in the 70s............
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