Felice Picano - The Mesmerist

[dem bones]

Felice Picano - The Mesmerist (New English Lbrary, 1978)

David M Allister

Blurb:
"From page one, the reader is pulled into the horror of minds in jeopardy. A gripping, well-written tale." Mary Higgins Clark, author of Where Are the Children?

Few paid much heed when Frederick Dinsmore slipped into town, took shabby rooms and set out his sign promising 'Anti-Septic and Painless Dentistry'. They little dreamed that Dinsmore's uncanny skill as a dental surgeon concealed his true — and far more sinister — art. Nor did they suspect that the handsome stranger with the dazzling smile and diamond blue stare was in command of an irresistible power that held the town's richest man in its thrall.

Until the night Henry Lane hanged himself. The year was 1899, the season Sprlng, and the Mesmerist's reign had begun. For Henry Lane left a fortune, a cryptic note proclaiming himself ruined — and a young wife, Carrie, too beautiful, too rich to remain a widow. Gradually, Dinsmore took over her wealth, her body, her mind, and when his lust for power grew there were others in the town he could manipulate. Outraged by Dinsmore's influence, and his wicked hold over Carrie Lane, one man, James Ransom, determined to bring the Mesmerist to trial - only to find himself pitched against a terrifying force of evil that would not be denied.

The NEL paperback cheekily recycles Ron Alexander's photo of a man with mad eyes from Peter Hawkins' The Man With Mad Eyes (Nel, 1973), but the earlier hardcover shows more imagination and i plan to get around to it sooner rather than later. it's part of a neat haul from Brick Lane and Spitalfields markets this morning which saw the bride and me struggle home with twenty books, two pineapples and a roll of sellotape. Pick of the bunch, one of my holy grails, Marcus Hearn & Alan Barnes' The Hammer Story (Titan 1997), Ellery Queen's The Blue Movies Murders, a gloriously battered Dell edition of John Fowles The Magus (looks like a professional job; you can tell how the cover is just hanging on grimly to the crumpled spine), Laymon's Savage (read it but never had a copy 'til now), Steve Harris's Adventureland, two of Daphne du Maurier's macabre selections, and Dave Simpson's The FALLen: Life In And Out Of Britain's Most Insane Group bearing a fulsome endorsement from Mark E Smith ("I hate that f**king tw*t. I just f**king burned it").

[Johnlprobert]

That's definitely Udo Kier from Blood for Dracula with a drawn on moustache on the left there!

This book sounds cracking - another one for the list!