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Old 08.19.2008, 06:49 AM   #1445
gmku
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Oxford, England
Posts: 15,225
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From an Amazon reviewer: U.N.C.L.E.'s man in Rumania is found dead, completely drained of blood. Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin discover that THRUSH are using the vampire myth as cover for an operation to smuggle stolen treasure out of Europe.


The U.N.C.L.E. television series went off the rails in its third year, resorting to increasingly desperate self-parody, yet ACE's tie-in books went from strength to strength, possibly because the authors weren't restricted by budgets or network interference. This entry has the same four-act structure and one can almost hear Robert Vaughn and David McCallum saying the lines. Had it been a T.V. episode, it would have shone amongst the dross.
The story is slim but stylish, full of neat touches such as Dracula's descendant turning out to be a good guy, a THRUSH baddie posing as his ancestor and the use of radio-controlled wolves to scare the superstitious locals away from THRUSH's base. Sceptical to a man, Solo plays Scully to Illya's Mulder, the latter clinically cutting a swathe through an ever-deepening mystery. Thankfully we are spared one of those gooey romances between Solo and the scientist's sexy daughter that used to happen on television with tedious regularity.

McDaniel knew what made 'U.N.C.L.E.' tick and seems to have done his vampire homework. There's even a cameo by the legendary horror movie buff Forrest J.Ackerman. Unlike Judith Merill, he had a sense of humour!
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