The Vampires of Finistere

Inspired by The Groovy Age of Horror I've tracked down a battered 1972 old copy of The Vampires of Finistere, originally published in 1970 by 'Peter Saxon' (who in fact was a pen-name that a myriad of pulpy authors used in the 60's & 70's).

What a guilty pleasure this yellowed-masterpiece was. The blurb from the back gives you an idea of what you should expect in it's slim 190 pages;

Vampirism, Witchcraft, Black Magic, Voodoo, Sorcery… All the nightmare shapes of Evil – with only The Guardians aroused, aware and able to fight the Dark Powers on their own ground! A missing girl tourist, an archaic ritual in a town that Time forgot and a legend of a sunken city draw The Guardians into their most desperate exploit … and a cataclysmic victory!

In fact that gives you a much better idea of what the story involves rather than that awful sub-conan muscled monstrosity of a cover. Not only is it appalling it has no bearing on the tale whatsoever. I must prefer the Jeff Jones version on the Groovy Age of Horror site.
But enough about the cover, what about the story itself. Well if it had been written three years later I would have said that the author had just seen the Wicker Man as Vampires of Finistere has a lone investigator travelling to a community cut off from the outside world by both water and their pagan beliefs. There's even a fuedal lord who, er, lords it over the village in a Christopher Lee manner. But of course none of this is intentional and to be honest doesn't do the novel any harm.
So we get Steven Kane, an heroic supernatural James Bondish-style action hero and member of the Guardian - a crack team of ghost hunters and demon fighters - who tries to track down a welsh girl lost in the midst of a pagan ritual, facing of stranger-hating locals and taking a dip with a half-siren, half-vampire were-shark in the process. Yes, I'll say that again, a were-shark - Genius!
OK, so this isn't the greatest literature in the world but it is just sheer escapism from a more innocent time. I know I'll be trying to track down other Guardian novels on Ebay. More rubbish to fill the house up with then...