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Blood Tide
Talisman Of Death
A steel bracelet with the dread SS crest,
naked symbol of history's most demonic terror ...
For years it has waited on the ocean floor ...
waited for Police Officer Willy Dahlgren to put the cares of a quiet New England fishing village behind him ...
to spend a sunny afternoon scuba diving off the Massachusetts shore ...
In the otherworldly depths of the Atlantic,
encrusted with time and the sea,
the bracelet is waiting ...
When Willy takes it ... calls it his own ...
the unholy spirit will awaken.
The nightmare will begin ... again.
A steel bracelet with the dread SS crest,
naked symbol of history's most demonic terror ...
For years it has waited on the ocean floor ...
waited for Police Officer Willy Dahlgren to put the cares of a quiet New England fishing village behind him ...
to spend a sunny afternoon scuba diving off the Massachusetts shore ...
In the otherworldly depths of the Atlantic,
encrusted with time and the sea,
the bracelet is waiting ...
When Willy takes it ... calls it his own ...
the unholy spirit will awaken.
The nightmare will begin ... again.
- GenresHorror
443 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1979
1 person is currently reading
43 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 4, 2023
Wernick only penned a handful of horror novels in the 70s and this is my second of his, after Cain's Touch. Decent premise here, but not what I was expecting. Blood Tide starts with an SS Nazi officer in Berlin, 1945, and the war is winding down. Some mysterious Nazi bigwig has the idea to plant our main protagonist (kinda) on the shores of the USA to somehow, covertly, plant the seeds of the Fourth Reich. Well, he gets close, but ends up drowning off the coast of Massachusetts. Flash forward 30 years or so and our story starts.
I was expecting Nazi zombies or such, but no. Wernick tells a story where the evil within the SS officer is somehow transferred to his identity bracelet (check out the cover). 30 years later, the bracelet is found by a local cop casually scuba diving, an easy going guy named Willy. After a through cleaning, the bracelet is almost as good as new and he puts it on. Bad move Willy! At the same time, the 'punks' are 'overrunning' the small coastal town, or at least it seems so to several local business owners how have had their property vandalized. Willy is contacted by some of the local brass to see if he would be willing to start his own private security force.
Willy may be laid back, but he is well known to knock heads on 'punks' to give up info, etc. The police captain has looked the other was as Willy gets results. The town brass knows this and thinks Willy would be a great deterrent. So, with some capital from local business owners, Willy quits the PD and starts his own firm. His best friend Max, however is puzzled. Before Willy found the bracelet, he was unsure of the whole private security deal. He liked being a cop. After the bracelet, Willy is gung ho as all get out. A few weeks later, Willy stops by to see Max, telling him that he has had strange black outs, at first just for a few minutes, but longer and longer. Blackouts are perhaps the wrong word, as Willy can see what he does, but it is like someone else is using his body...
I will stop here on the story arc. Obviously, Willy is being possessed or something by the dead Nazi. But how does that relate to planting the seeds for the Fourth Reich? Let me just say that the private security force starts to resemble a group that used to wear brown shirts.
Wernick drops in some nasty, violent scenes here along the way, many including rape, along with lots of 'flashbacks' into the nature of the Third Reich. You could see what was going to happen a mile away, however, so no real surprises. No Nazi zombies, but reincarnated possession? Yeah. Pacing issues abound, and this is a long novel. Nonetheless, you could do worse with a Nazi trope. 2.5 stars, rounding up.
I was expecting Nazi zombies or such, but no. Wernick tells a story where the evil within the SS officer is somehow transferred to his identity bracelet (check out the cover). 30 years later, the bracelet is found by a local cop casually scuba diving, an easy going guy named Willy. After a through cleaning, the bracelet is almost as good as new and he puts it on. Bad move Willy! At the same time, the 'punks' are 'overrunning' the small coastal town, or at least it seems so to several local business owners how have had their property vandalized. Willy is contacted by some of the local brass to see if he would be willing to start his own private security force.
Willy may be laid back, but he is well known to knock heads on 'punks' to give up info, etc. The police captain has looked the other was as Willy gets results. The town brass knows this and thinks Willy would be a great deterrent. So, with some capital from local business owners, Willy quits the PD and starts his own firm. His best friend Max, however is puzzled. Before Willy found the bracelet, he was unsure of the whole private security deal. He liked being a cop. After the bracelet, Willy is gung ho as all get out. A few weeks later, Willy stops by to see Max, telling him that he has had strange black outs, at first just for a few minutes, but longer and longer. Blackouts are perhaps the wrong word, as Willy can see what he does, but it is like someone else is using his body...
I will stop here on the story arc. Obviously, Willy is being possessed or something by the dead Nazi. But how does that relate to planting the seeds for the Fourth Reich? Let me just say that the private security force starts to resemble a group that used to wear brown shirts.
Wernick drops in some nasty, violent scenes here along the way, many including rape, along with lots of 'flashbacks' into the nature of the Third Reich. You could see what was going to happen a mile away, however, so no real surprises. No Nazi zombies, but reincarnated possession? Yeah. Pacing issues abound, and this is a long novel. Nonetheless, you could do worse with a Nazi trope. 2.5 stars, rounding up.
March 10, 2023
1979. What I thought it was going to be: a ridiculous B movie type book about Nazi zombies in (then) modern day times. What it was: an actual realistic example of what could easily happen again. In fact, I’d hardly classify this as a horror novel though there is a smidge of supernatural going on.
We start at the end of World War 2. SS guy is contacted by mystery higher up Nazi guy. He gets told he is to go to the US undercover to start an extension of the Third Reich there. A sub takes him to a small Massachusetts town. He gets in his little rowboat and starts heading for the shore. Out of nowhere a US plane comes flying over and bombs the sub. He dies in the blast and sinks to the bottom.
Jump to the 70’s. Local cop gets an offer from the town rich guys to start a security business to protect their stuff because the cops just ain’t cutting it. He wants no part of it. He decides to go scuba diving after his shift. He stops by his buddy’s house and borrows his boat. Down in the depths he finds something shiny in the ocean floor. I hope it’s not some Nazi memorabilia!
It’s the I.D. bracelet of the SS guy. He puts it on and is now possessed by the evil spirit of Nazi. The two personalities act as one for a little while. The Nazi does eventually take over. He starts the security business, hires brute criminals, dresses them in militia gear and forms his own little military.
He uses fear to get the town to feel that they need the new militia to protect them. He uses intimidation and violence for the ones who are against him. We all know the drill. Oddly enough there wasn’t really any mention of race or religion. The Nazis in this book we’re just basic aggression with the only centralized ideology being power. There was a lot of violence against women though. Holy Shit. A lot. It was rough to get through. It made me physically angry. Like, I was on edge. I wanted to walk out my door, find some shitbag and take it out on them. But yeah, this book was some, “it could happen here” type scary shit. It was amazing the way you watched it happen slowly and escalate to a point where it was completely out of anyone’s hand to stop. It was definitely a page turner but I think I’d like to go back to fun horror now. Real world horror is terrifying.
We start at the end of World War 2. SS guy is contacted by mystery higher up Nazi guy. He gets told he is to go to the US undercover to start an extension of the Third Reich there. A sub takes him to a small Massachusetts town. He gets in his little rowboat and starts heading for the shore. Out of nowhere a US plane comes flying over and bombs the sub. He dies in the blast and sinks to the bottom.
Jump to the 70’s. Local cop gets an offer from the town rich guys to start a security business to protect their stuff because the cops just ain’t cutting it. He wants no part of it. He decides to go scuba diving after his shift. He stops by his buddy’s house and borrows his boat. Down in the depths he finds something shiny in the ocean floor. I hope it’s not some Nazi memorabilia!
It’s the I.D. bracelet of the SS guy. He puts it on and is now possessed by the evil spirit of Nazi. The two personalities act as one for a little while. The Nazi does eventually take over. He starts the security business, hires brute criminals, dresses them in militia gear and forms his own little military.
He uses fear to get the town to feel that they need the new militia to protect them. He uses intimidation and violence for the ones who are against him. We all know the drill. Oddly enough there wasn’t really any mention of race or religion. The Nazis in this book we’re just basic aggression with the only centralized ideology being power. There was a lot of violence against women though. Holy Shit. A lot. It was rough to get through. It made me physically angry. Like, I was on edge. I wanted to walk out my door, find some shitbag and take it out on them. But yeah, this book was some, “it could happen here” type scary shit. It was amazing the way you watched it happen slowly and escalate to a point where it was completely out of anyone’s hand to stop. It was definitely a page turner but I think I’d like to go back to fun horror now. Real world horror is terrifying.
November 18, 2017
Wernick – a forgotten pulp-horror novelist – is not necessarily a good writer… but his brazen audacity makes him at least an interesting one.
His prose rarely rises above standard-issue, he avoids all but the most cursory, clichéd character development, his dialogue diminishes even the characters we’re supposed to like, and his pacing can be clunky.
However, if Wernick has a forte, it’s naaastinessss! His narratives are fraught with conflict, cruelty, and scenes that leave the reader outraged (“Blood Tide” has seven rapes, for instance—four of which end with the woman’s death). Wernick’s a skilled button-pusher, and that, coupled with a seeming aversion to filler, render his paperbacks lean and mean.
That’s why I enjoyed “Blood Tide” a bit more than I’d expected. The story of a Nazi-possessed police officer who takes over a small town was actually kind of a page-turner.
I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend “Blood Tide,” but depending on what one's looking for from a disposable ‘70s horror paperback, one could do worse.
SIDE NOTE: “Blood Tide”’s theme of how a small town is affected by a supernatural force, both micro and macro, reminded me of King’s “Under the Dome.” Is it altogether impossible that King, at some point, read Wernick?
His prose rarely rises above standard-issue, he avoids all but the most cursory, clichéd character development, his dialogue diminishes even the characters we’re supposed to like, and his pacing can be clunky.
However, if Wernick has a forte, it’s naaastinessss! His narratives are fraught with conflict, cruelty, and scenes that leave the reader outraged (“Blood Tide” has seven rapes, for instance—four of which end with the woman’s death). Wernick’s a skilled button-pusher, and that, coupled with a seeming aversion to filler, render his paperbacks lean and mean.
That’s why I enjoyed “Blood Tide” a bit more than I’d expected. The story of a Nazi-possessed police officer who takes over a small town was actually kind of a page-turner.
I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend “Blood Tide,” but depending on what one's looking for from a disposable ‘70s horror paperback, one could do worse.
SIDE NOTE: “Blood Tide”’s theme of how a small town is affected by a supernatural force, both micro and macro, reminded me of King’s “Under the Dome.” Is it altogether impossible that King, at some point, read Wernick?
February 4, 2014
A Nazi dies while trying to row from a submarine to a Massachusetts cove. Decades later, his bracelet is found by a borderline psychopathic cop, who is promptly possessed with the Nazi's spirit. The cop starts up a security company that proceeds to terrorize the small coastal town. I was hoping this would have been another entry in the very specific aquatic Nazi zombie genre along with Shock Waves and Zombie Lake, but it's more of a It Can Happen Here style drama. 450 pages of padding punctuated by way too many rape scenes.
More reviews at Trash Menace.
More reviews at Trash Menace.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews