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Breathtaking chapter. So much happening here to move the story along. I’m sure you read Kostova’s “The Historian”. She explores Cold War Hungary as well, but her focus is more on the red-tape and bureaucracy of the era; and I think her setting is much later, like in the late 1960s. I haven’t read a suspense/horror novel set in Eastern Europe during the 1950s that’s as immersive and believable as yours is. The prose is redolent of the old Alistair Maclean novels, like “Ice Station Zebra”.

I like the way you had Diels react to the artillery fire, recollecting the trauma of two decades prior. I loved the usage of a flamethrower as an effective weapon against vampires. Did you by chance see Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”? There’s a retro flamethrower in that film as well. For what it’s worth, I detected no typos.

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Thanks. I’m glad that you liked it, because I had a difficult time figuring out how to bring this one to a conclusion.

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