Georgena Goff - The Black Dog

[dem bones]

Georgena Goff - The Black Dog (Five Star, 1973)

A STRANGE AND HORRIFYING DEATH

Blurb

Lottie Daley, a young teacher interested in psychic lore, was sure that the handsome stranger was the creature of the legend, born of a virgin centuries before. The legend whispered that he appeared every twenty-five years, accompanied by the black dog who guarded his mother's grave. Lottie could sense his sinister and hypnotic influence sapping her will and pulling her into the strange world of the psychic occult - toward a strange and horrify­ing death.

First published as a Belmont 'Blue Ribbon Gothic' in 1971 and billed here as an 'Occult Thriller' as opposed to a 'Gothic Romance', so what we're in for is anyone's guess. You know where you stand with the Peter Saxon's, but beyond that the Five Star horrors tend to follow either the Ann Radcliffe Mysteries Of Udolpho model (extreme mild terror) or neglected proper horror pulp gems, and there are enough of these buried in their curious catalogue to keep things interesting. This could be one of them. It all depends on how the wonderfully named 'Georgena Goff' (could be a Brit: lots of references to 'the Pub') wants to play her material.

The blurb is slightly misleading. It's not Charlotte 'Lottie' Daley who's particularly interested in the occult but her boyfriend and aspiring author, Jed Kluskey. With the help of a book by noted English author, Cranbrook-Ashbury, Jed has been researching the legend of Mary Holme of 'Lancastershire, England', a staunchly religious woman with a harelip that split her nose in two, who, back in the eighteenth century, received a visitation from God. God had apparently ear-marked her as a second Virgin Mary and, sure enough, Mary fell pregnant but died in childbirth, the newborn, depending on who you believed, either whisked off by the angels to join his mother in Heaven - or dragged down to Hell where they both belonged!

A cult immediately grew up around Mary Holme and her child, their followers flung wide across the globe. According to Jed's research, a Holme with psychic powers appears on earth once every quarter century, and when he does, three women disappear from the village of Lancastershire. Jed is certain that the current incarnation is active in ... wherever it is he and Lottie live: either i've missed the location or Ms. Goff hasn't mentioned it yet, but it seems to be in America. To this end, Jed has persuaded Lottie to take lodgings at the spooky old white house on the top of the hill run by sinister spinster Miss Potter, a strictly 'No Sex Please, We're respectable Americans' killjoy who nonetheless holds regular seances in gloomy mansion .... seances attended by a mysterious local psychic named Holmes.

Jed drives Lottie over to the Holmes place on the cliff by the lake, but she can't get near on account of a psychic force-field!

Meanwhile, back in Lancastershire, only two women have disappeared to mark the return of Holmes. Could his power be dwindling .... or has he someone special lined up for victim no.3?

Now the black dog is about to make an appearance, so we might have a better idea how this one's going to shape up ...