Man In A Black Hat

Temple Thurston
Valancourt Books

This strange novel opens at a country estate sale, where after a round of intense bidding, Mr Crawshay-Martin wins the auction for a 16th-century manuscript containing the occult secrets of the order of the Rosicrucians. But he does not get to enjoy his purchase long: the following morning, he is found dead inside his locked room, his throat slashed and the book missing. The police write the case off as a suicide, but Crawshay-Martin's friend Dr Hawke isn't so sure. He suspects the mysterious Gollancz, whose face, partly concealed beneath a black sombrero hat, does not seem to have aged a day in thirty years. Who is Gollancz, and what terrible powers of life and death does he possess? Temple Thurston's weird story will keep readers guessing until the final confrontation between the doctor and the Man in a Black Hat.

Originally published is 1930 this is part of a reissue project undertaken by Valancourt of forgotten and neglected gems of weird crime and thriller fiction.

E. Temple Thurston was an author, journalist, playwright and travel writer most well known at the time for his travel book about English canals, 'The Flower of Gloster' - and his play, 'The Wandering Jew' whilst this novel slipped into - undeserved - obscurity much like the author himself.

Falling under the umbrella term of 'metaphysical fiction' (recently explored in a pair of blog posts by Mark Valentine on his Wormwoodiana blog - part 1 & part 2) Thurston's tale of a Rosicrucian mystic and a locked room murder made for a fascinating read.  Sharing kinship with the likes of Charles Williams and David Lindsay it's a rumination on magic and the nature of reality if in fact the mystic in question, Gollancz, did indeed commit the murder whilst also somehow being many miles away.

The confusion and frustration our protagonist, Dr. Hawke, feels whilst trying to puzzle out the improbable how of things is contrasted by the cool certainty of his counterpart.  Perhaps unusually for a locked room mystery we are always in concert with the good Doctor that Gollancz is indeed guilty and we are swept along in the wake of Hawke's erratic ruminations and investigations.

The book - as is the case with a number of these reissues - contains an introduction by the aforementioned Mark Valentine (where I cribbed the background info from) who provides one of his characteristically informative author overviews as well as thoughts on the template for our villanous mystic.

A truly captivating, thoroughly enjoyable read that hopefully with this reissue will now be enjoyed by the wider audience it deserves.

Buy it here - UK / US.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

The Haunted Woman

David Lindsay

Canongate

Unfulfilled young Isbel Loment is companion to a wealthy spinster aunt. Their lives consist of an endless tour of hotels. In search of a place to settle her aunt, so she herself can be free to marry her fiancé, Isbel visits the house of an older man, Judge, which comes complete with rumors of a ghostly staircase that appears only at certain times or to certain people. Isbel sees the staircase & ascends it to a region of the house where her perceptions of herself, & others, alter, with profound consequences for her everday life.

Lindsay is now a recognisable name in classic sci-fi circles for his book 'A Voyage to Arcturus' which at the time of release sank almost without trace and was only posthumously acclaimed but having just read 'The Haunted Woman' I'm left wondering if this book also needs it's moment in the sun.

The story centres around Isbel Loment who, with her aunt, Mrs Moor, lives a nomadic and fairly meaningless existence moving from hotel to hotel.  Whilst in Brighton, and through Isbel's fiance Marshall they discover the availability of a house into which Mrs Moor might settle upon Isbel's marriage.

The house, owned by a widower named Judge has a secret,  a staircase, visible only to some that leads to three rooms.  The first room contains a mirror, the second a sofa and the third a window through which can be seen a view of an idyllic valley in which sits a musician playing an unfamiliar instrument.  The first room allows Isbel to see her true self, the second provides an environment where social masks can be dropped and truer nature's expressed and the third almost forcibly strips them of their reservations presenting them with the full expression of their deeper feelings away from the confines of everyday society.

The social mores of their everyday world seem archaic and even at the time were probably a little old hat but as an examination of the ways in which conventions govern our lives and the ways in which we surrender to them as seen in Isbel and Judge's amnesia upon descending the stairs as they are literally forgetting themselves which seems, at least for Lindsay, to be eminently preferable to the alternative.

Perhaps Lindsay's own fear of emotional commitment lies at the heart of the book's bleak ending or perhaps it's a comment on the wisdom of fully revealing ones true self as then you'll see the terrifying other self.

Whatever the truth of it it's an undeniably powerful and twisted end to a fascinating read

Buy it here - UK / US.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs