Mon 17 Apr 2017
An Occult Fantasy Review: PETER SAXON – The Vampires of Finistère.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy[4] Comments
PETER SAXON – The Vampires of Finistère. The Guardians #4. Berkley X1808, paperback original; 1st US printing, April 1970. First published in the UK by Howard Baker, hardcover, 1970.
I’m not too sure of the numbering, even though the cover of the Berkley paperback clearly says this is #4 in the series. But I also believe that this is the last of the series, and there are five of them in all. (The numbering may be Berkley’s doing. One of the books, The Curse of Rathlaw, was published first in this country by Lancer.)
As for the author, there was no Peter Saxon. That was a house name used by many authors, including W Howard Baker, who used it as his own personal pseudonym at first, primarily for Sexton Blake novels, then used by other authors for other books and series.
The author of Vampires is generally accepted as being Rex Dolphin, whose name and work has come up for discussion previously on this blog with a review of a tale he wrote for Weird Tales entitled “Off the Map.”
I have read online some speculation that The Guardians may have been the first team of occult detectives, fighting among other evils in the world the following: vampirism, witchcraft, black magic, voodoo and sorcery. (I am cribbing from a list displayed on the back cover of the book at hand.)
The members of The Guardians, based in a strangely out-of-the-way location in London, are:
Gideon Cross: Founder and most powerful member in terms of his own occult powers. He generally does not leave the team’s headquarter building. Sometimes his actual motives in their various investigations seem hazy.
Steven Kane: The leader, rugged and individualistic, a former professor anthropology with a vast knowledge of the occult.
Father John Dyball: A priest and a former wartime chaplain. Very handy when exorcisms and/or prayers are needed.
Lionel Marks: No psychic powers but a fine detective and a good man to have along when the going gets tough. A very minor participant in this adventure.
Anne Ashby: A beautiful mysterious woman with many secrets and psychic powers. A strong connection exists between herself and Gideon Cross, but none of the other members of the team are sure what it is.
In this particular investigation, The Guardians come to the assistance of a young man whose girl friend disappeared while they were traveling in an isolated region of Brittany. Getting off a main road they leave their car and try to walk to the sea, but instead find themselves caught up in a pagan ritual harking back to ancient times.
The first two-thirds of the book are simply terrific. Dolphin, if he indeed was the author, was a very descriptive writer, evoking both eeriness, and a sense of wonder, fear and dread in almost every passage he writes. It is easy to believe, once you fall under his spell, that there could be an isolated village on the coast of France where if anyone visits, they never come back a second time.
Unfortunately, in terms of a team effort, this is very nearly a one-man show. For most of the book, Steven Kane is the only member who has any active role in trying to track down the missing girl. (She is a virgin, by the way. Her father forbade the trip if there were going to be any funny business going on between her and her boy friend.)
Alas, that also means that Ann Ashby’s active presence is contained in only a few pages at the beginning. I’d like to learned more about her. The ending is perfunctory, but the getting there is quite a bit of fun. And, yes, that scene on the cover of the Berkley paperback, so evocatively portrayed by artist Jeff Jones, is actually in the book.
April 17th, 2017 at 9:53 pm
Dennis Wheatley beat them to an occult fighting team with the Duc de Richelieu and friends though they were strictly amateurs.
I have generally favorable memories of this one.
April 17th, 2017 at 10:04 pm
Dennis Wheatley. Of course!
April 18th, 2017 at 1:32 pm
The publication history and attributed authorship of the “Peter Saxon” Guardian series can be seen here: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?25467
There appears to have been six books in the series. THROUGH THE DARK CURTAIN (Lancer 73-714) and THE CURSE OF RATHLAW (Lancer 73-750), were both published in 1968. Authorship of both are attributed to “Peter Saxon” and mention The Guardians on the covers.
A Scot, Wilfred McNeilly, is given co-author credit on the second and third books in the series, DARK WAYS TO DEATH and THE HAUNTING OF ALAN MAIS. Baker is giving writing credits for the first three books, including sole credit for the first one: THE KILLING BONE.
ISFDB gives Rex Dolphin (as “Peter Saxon”) sole credit for Berkley publication of THE VAMPIRES OF FINISTERE. Dolphin’s entry on ISFDB shows THE VAMPIRES OF FINISTERE as his only full-length fiction publication: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?17009
April 18th, 2017 at 3:40 pm
Thanks for the link to the Guardians books on ISFDb, Bill. I seem not to have looked there when I was trying to research the series myself.
The authors of the various books in the series seem to be well attributed, but an earlier discussion about them on this blog seemed to suggest that not everything is nailed down as well as it might be.
I was trying at one time to put the books into a well-defined chronological sequence, but I gave up when I discovered (or at least I think I did) that the books came out in different order in England than they did over here.
I really messed things up, though, in this review when I said there were five books in the series, and you’re absolutely correct, Bill, in pointing out that there were six. The Fantastic Fiction website lists five, though, and that’s what I had in mind when I looked in Hubin. He has all six, but for whatever reason, I “saw” only five. The order may not really matter, since the books are nearly self-contained. Even this one I just read, perhaps the last in series, introduced the members of the team as if the reader had never come across them before.
But to sum things up, I hope, in this country, the first two were published by Lancer, without numbering them as part of a series. Then Berkley did the next four, numbering them as #1-4, ignoring the two earlier ones.