The Devil Aspect
A Novel
-
-
4.0 • 39 Ratings
-
-
- $10.99
-
- $10.99
Publisher Description
Steeped in the folklore of Eastern Europe, and set in the shadow of Nazi darkness erupting just beyond the Czech border, this bone-chilling, richly imagined novel is propulsively entertaining, and impossible to put down.
"A wildly entertaining story...Russell has created a truly frightening story." —The New York Times Book Review
Czechoslovakia, 1935: Viktor Kosárek, a newly trained psychiatrist who studied under Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The facility is located in a medieval mountaintop castle surrounded by forests, on a site that is well known for concealing dark secrets going back many centuries. The asylum houses six inmates--the country's most treacherous killers--known to the terrified public as the Devil's Six. Viktor intends to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon he calls The Devil Aspect. Yet as he begins to learn the stunning secrets of these patients, he must face the unnerving possibility that these six may share a darker truth.
Meanwhile, in Prague, fear grips the city as a phantom serial killer emerges in the dark alleys. Police investigator Lukas Smolak, desperate to locate the culprit (a copycat of Jack the Ripper), turns to Viktor and the doctors at Hrad Orlu for their expertise with the psychotic criminal mind. And Viktor finds himself wrapped up in a case more terrifying than he could have ever imagined.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What if a Jack the Ripper copycat was at work in 1935 Czechoslovakia? That's the premise of this sensational serial killer novel, Scottish author Russell's U.S. debut, in which twists are both jaw-dropping and logical. Kapit n Luk s Smol k of the Prague Police is desperate to catch the fiend known as Leather Apron, who has been butchering prostitutes in ways that mimic the Ripper's methods. When a respectable, upper-class woman is slain, Smol k fears the motive is related to the victims' Czech-German ethnicity. Meanwhile, psychiatrist Viktor Kos rek arrives at Hrad Orlu Asylum, situated in an isolated gothic castle that was supposedly constructed to block a literal gateway to hell. The asylum houses the Devil's Six, murderers who all claim that they were compelled to commit their crimes by a demonic figure. Kos rek hopes to employ new hypnotic drugs on the patients to validate his theories regarding archetypes. Russell integrates the period's political tensions into a mind-blowing story line that will appeal to fans of Caleb Carr and Thomas Harris.
