Small groups of the clergy managed to survive in Civil War-torn Barcelona in 1936, but many were slaughtered or fled. Almazora’s novel concentrates on some Marist Brothers, which include a Bishop, and a group of nuns taking refuge in a nearby convent. He fictionalises a leading player in the Red Terror, the anarchist, Manuel Escorza; though his actual physical handicap and viciousness remain.
The novel opens with a short narration from a vampire, of the particularly brutal murder of an elderly monk and a young boy.
At the convent, the Bishop takes an interest in the youngest of the nuns, a 13 year old, apparently because of her musical abilities - but his behaviour is observed, by the Superintendent investigating the murder, and the vampire, who’s actual identity is for the reader to figure out.
There’s a lot of grisly killings especially at the start of the book, and to some extent the latter part of the book peters out, but in the last sentences the vampire’s identity is revealed.
To Almazora’s credit, is that in writing a vampire into Civil War Spain, it is not really noticed as the violence is that bad anyway. In criticism, the timing of his key scenes put me in mind of a distance runner’s sprint, when it is just too early.. and the runner barely makes the line.