Hell's Gate

A first novel by Bill Schutt, a research zoologist, whose non-fiction account of blood-feeding animals, Dark Banquet, was highly acclaimed. He is writing with J.R. Finch, perhaps a ghost writer? At any rate we can take it that Schutt knows his stuff about bats, and they play a big part in this WWII era thriller about a secret Axis submarine that has traveled to inland Brazil with an unknown agenda.  Turns out that it's a Japanese sub of enormous proportions carrying German rocket scientists, but we don't know that until a bit later in the book. Capt. R. J. MacCready, a military scientist cum adventurer, is ordered into the interior to find out what they are up to. Along the way, however, he encounters another mystery. Shadowy creatures are hunting him using some kind of mind control. OK, the creatures are giant vampire bats, once thought extinct, but which have apparently lived in a hidden pocket of Brazil until disturbed by the incursion of submarines and soldiers, so now they are out hunting humans. And they have indeed evolved to use their sonar capabilities to selectively target areas of the brain and lull their human prey into not fleeing. To top it off, they are the host to a bacteria that causes the bite victim to rapidly bleed out--handy for the vampires and fatal to the humans. The nasty German and Japanese scientists, once they discover the bats, want to capture them and isolate the bacteria for germ warfare. There is a bit of fact and a lot of fiction in this read, which is reasonably well-written in spite of the far-fetched plot. Pure cotton candy. I would not go out of my way to read the planned sequel but wouldn't turn it down in a pinch either.  Kirkus--one of my "go to" sources for book reviews, liked the book, as did The Washington Post.