The Alienist meets The Exorcist in Tallis' novel of psychological suspense, as an ambitious young doctor explores the dangerous border between science and the supernatural.
1873. When the ambitious Doctor Paul Cl├®ment takes a job on the island of Saint S├®bastien, he has dreams of finding cures for tropical diseases. After witnessing the ritualistic murder of a young boy who was allegedly already dead, he is warned never to speak of what he has seen. Back in fin de si├¿cle Paris, Paul's attention turns to studying the nervous system and resuscitation through electricity. Paul is told of patients who apparently died and were brought back to life, claiming to have witnessed what they believed to be Heaven while they lay between life and death. Using forbidden knowledge he swore never to use, he attempts to experience what everyone else has seen, but something goes horribly wrong. When Paul returns to the land of the living, is it possible that he could bring something else back with him, an unspeakable evil so powerful it can never be banished?
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“Thrilling. What we have here is a properscare-your-socks-off horror tale. Tallis weaves real historical figures intothe narrative and conjures up fin-de-siècle France beautifully, but his mainintention, excellently achieved, is to jolt even the hardiest of hearts.”
— Financial Times
“If you’re looking for the best in popular fiction, Tallis is well worth seeking out.”
— Washington Post“Demonic possession drives the plot of this polished supernatural thriller…Tallis knows how to elicit fear in his readers, with first-rate prose and atmospherics.”
— Publishers Weekly“Written in a lightly ornamented style to match its Victorian setting, this is a full-on horror story that grabs us pretty much from the first paragraph and doesn’t let go until it’s good and ready to. For fans of gothic horror, a tasty treat.”
— BooklistBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
F. R . Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. He has received or been nominated for numerous awards, including the New London Writers’ Award, the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Elle Prix de Letrice, the CWA Historical Dagger Award, and two Edgar Awards.
Simon Vance (a.k.a. Robert Whitfield) is an award-winning actor and narrator. He has earned more than fifty Earphones Awards and won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration thirteen times. He was named Booklist’s very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and has been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009. He has narrated more than eight hundred audiobooks over almost thirty years, beginning when he was a radio newsreader for the BBC in London. He is also an actor who has appeared on both stage and television.