Mailman/writer delivers a scare.
By Josh Berk

Letter carrier by night, vampire (author) by night. Like his characters, which run wild after the sun goes down, Larry Deibert of Lower Saucon Township lets his imagination run free after he comes home from work each day. Deibert describes his new book, ''Requiem for A Vampire,'' as ''a horror/vampire novel -- full of killing and sex.'' He laughs and adds -- ''It's not for kids.''

Deibert, who recently turned 60 and plans to retire from his job with the Postal Service at the end of this year, has long enjoyed writing as a hobby. He began putting pen to paper after returning home from the Vietnam War in 1974. A memoir on his war experiences was never published, but a military police novel, ''95 Bravo,'' was released as an e-book in 2004. The 200-page ''Requiem for A Vampire'' was published both as an e-book and a paperback by Mundania Press of Cincinnati earlier this year.

''Requiem'' did not begin as a serious undertaking for Deibert. ''I just wanted to have some fun with it,'' he says. ''I've always wanted to do a vampire story. It started out and I thought maybe it would be a short story, but I just kept adding chapters and before long it became a novel.''

Much of the book is set in the Lehigh Valley, with major scenes taking place in Allentown and along Catasauqua Road. There is also a letter carrier who figures in the gory tale, but Deibert did not make his fictional doppelganger the hero -- he made him a corpse. When the body of this letter carrier is found, the heroine (Kathleen Hammond, a fictional reporter for The Morning Call) realizes that ''there's something strange going on here,'' Deibert says. Kathleen researches what appears to be a string of vampiric activities in the Lehigh Valley. She is met with skepticism, but the intrepid reporter and several other believers end up finding and hunting a vampire named Lani. There is a bloody struggle that ends in a final battle of good versus evil.

''Requiem for A Vampire'' is available through http://www.mundania.com ; autographed copies can be purchased through http://www.larrydeibert.com.

October 27, 2007
The Morning Call