THE TRUTH OF ALL THINGS by Kieran Shields

This was a random library find, and a good one.

It's Portland, Maine, in 1892. Deputy Marshall Archie Lean is called in when a grotesque murder takes place; a prostitute has been found gruesomely stabbed with a pitchfork through her throat and a bloody cross cut into her torso. Bizarre findings around the body point to some sort of ritual, and criminalist Perceval Grey, who is part Native American, is called in to look at the crime scene. He and Grey get along well and team up to find the killer.

This was a pleasant surprise, as the plot is steeped in the Salem Witch Trials, The murderer is obviously attempting some sort of black magic here, but what? The involves fortune tellers and spiritualists, and a medium who does seem to have real powers. Even though I'm a hard-nosed skeptic, I did enjoy how the story straddled the line between the mundane and the mystical.

The addition of supernatural gothic elements to a historical procedural mystery were very entertaining. The characters were also fun; Archie Lean is a father-to-be, rather old-fashioned, but with a sense of humor and of what's wrong and right. Perceval Grey is all science, young, exotic, and sometimes an exasperating stick-in-the-mud. There is a somewhat contrived romance that does take away from the story, but only in a very minor way.

There's a sequel I want to get to, but it seems the Lean and Grey series ended there; I saw a note on the author's page that his publisher had declined on a further story. Let's hope he find some one else to publish it, because I think Shields is on to something here.

THE DEVIL'S MISTRESS by J. W. Brodie-Innes

What a lurid title!  What a lurid cover!  And yet, underneath it all, it's actually quite a good historical supernatural novel, based on what's known of a real case of witchcraft in 17th-century Scotland.

Isobel Goudie (sic) is the intelligent, passionate daughter of an attorney, used to an exciting life with her prosperous father.  However, due to various machinations, she ends up in an unhappy arranged marriage with a cloddish poor farmer.  She was raised Catholic, but he's a devout Protestant, and demands she renounce her Catholic baptism.  She's generally miserable, and an attempt to spark up her loveless marriage is useless.  But soon she meets a handsome stranger and is drawn to him, and through him is initiated into a coven of witches.  Soon her life is a whirl of spells and enchantments, and she sees beneath the facade of local respectability.  She even visits the Fair Folk for a while.  But in the end, her conscience and devotion to her friends has her breaking from her love and her coven, and putting her own life in jeopardy.

Isobel Gowdie (the more common spelling) was a real person who was tried for witchcraft in 1662.  Apparently she confessed voluntarily; there are no indications that she was tortured or interrogated in any way; she seemingly just walked up to the authorities one day and said, "Oh by the way, did you know I'm a witch?"  Her confessions are very lengthy and detailed...and also out of sync with other known "facts" about witchcraft at the time.  In fact, she established a few cliches that were unknown before her confessions were made public.  It's debated if she was truly involved in some sort of coven or cult, or if she was mentally ill and her confessions were the work of a bizarre inner fantasy life.  There is no record of her being executed; was she done to death, or did they decide she was crazy and put her away?  (I once saw her name used by a Wiccan as an example of one of the "millions" who were "tortured and executed" for witchcraft...but as far as is known, Gowdie was never tortured or executed, and the best estimates place the number of people executed for witchcraft, based on available documentation, is below 100,000.)

Naturally, Brodie-Innes takes the view that she was a real witch, at least for the purposes of this novel.  But she's not simply a cackling caricature.  Isobel is a fully-realized human being, of whom another character says that she "would either be a great sinner or a great saint."  She genuinely tries to make her marriage work before giving in to her otherworldly lover.  She truly cares for her friends and stands by them when they need her.  She wonders if her lover truly is Satan himself or just a roaming charlatan who knows some conjuring tricks.  And yet she gleefully partakes in the coven's hunts, and puts her enemies under dire enchantments.  And she often wonders if her supernatural adventures were just dreams.

That's one thing I truly liked about THE DEVIL'S MISTRESS; her spells and bizarre adventures with her coven are treated in a hallucinatory, dreamlike way.  She'll often be in another part of Scotland as part of her working an enchantment, but then get tired, fall asleep, and wake up in her own bed.  Sometimes I was tempted to think they truly were dreams, or drug trips, but another thought is that Brodie-Innes was thinking of them as astral projections, although that is never made explicit.  Her workings of magic are given quite a bit of attention and detail, but are never tedious or repetitive.  They're just more elements of the world the author creates.  And he knew his stuff.

John William Brodie-Innes was a Scottish lawyer and bibliophile, but was most notably a prominent member of the Golden Dawn, and a significant figure in Victorian and Edwardian occultism and mysticism.  He was a close associate of MacGregor Mathers, and reportedly gave Dion Fortune her training in the occult, and was the inspiration for her occult detective character in THE SECRETS OF DR. TAVENER.

I've read supernatural and horror fiction by occultists before, and Brodie-Innes is head and shoulders over all of them.  All too often, an occultist's passions and beliefs translate into tiresome preachiness and didacticism, and good storytelling, plotting, and characterization take a back seat.  Fortune's Tavener stories exist mainly to teach her views on occultism and psychic phenomena; another set of supernatural tales by Madame Blavatsky has its moments ("The Ensouled Violin" is flawed, but haunting) but overall is spoiled by her intention of communicating her worldview to the reader.

But Brodie-Innes simply creates a world and some fully-realized characters to populate it.  Isobel is sympathetic and strong, especially when she realizes she has to part ways with her lover when she realizes she must be true to herself and the people she cares for.  He never preaches or condemns, never tries to explain why the spells work or the nature of her experiences; they simply are. 

I read an old copy, a 1974 printing by Sphere that is Vol. 11 in "The Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult" that from what I've seen ranges from some genuine classics to some total crap.  But it's back in print (courtesy of Ramble House) and it's worth a read.  Gowdie has appeared in other novels, like ISOBEL by Jane Parkhurst, and NIGHT PLAGUE by Graham Masterson.  Gowdie's "spells" have made their way into poetry anthologies, and she's also inspired songs by artists like Creeping Myrtle and Alex Harvey.  Both Maddy Prior and Inkubus Sukkubus have used Gowdie's words in song.  And modern composer James MacMillan composed a 1990 orchestral piece, "The Confession of Isobel Gowdie," which has met with critical and audience acclaim.

So look for Isobel; she's well worth it.

Montague Summers' THE SUPERNATURAL OMNIBUS, Part 2

Well, I finally, finally finished Summers' monumental anthology. And a problem I noted in the first part, how Rosa Mulholland's "Not to be Taken at Bed-Time" was out of place in the ghost stories section, has now been explained. It seems there's been some sort of editorial error, although I'm not sure if it's Summers' fault or some later hack's work. Because in the second part, "Diabolism, Witchcraft, and Evil Lore," there's a story that's supposed to demonstrate "Witchcraft," but the story is Amelia Edwards' "My Brother's Ghost Story," a nice enough tale, but it has nothing to do with witchcraft. It looks like, somehow, the two stories were switched. It's actually a rather glaring error, and I'd like to know at whose feet I should be laying the blame.

Anyway, like the first part, I skipped a few stories. Here's the list of the ones I skipped:

"Singular Passage in the Life of the Late Henry Harris, Doctor in Divinity," by Richard Barham, is being saved for later, when I review some sections from THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS.
"Carmilla," by J. Sheridan le Fanu, is also being saved for later; I want to review this landmark work on its own, and take my time with it.
"The Story of Konnor Old House" by Kate and Hesketh Prichard is being saved for when I review all their Flaxman Low stories at once.

So, for the ones I did read...

"The Spirit of Stonehenge" by Jasper John. I expected something lurid and horrific, and was a little let down. It's basically a tale of an archaeologist who falls under the spell of the "elementals" of Stonehenge, and eventually dies there. There's more hinted at than actually happening, which is fairly frustrating.

The next story is also by Jasper John, "The Seeker of Souls." This is an oddly abbreviated tale that feels as if it could have been much longer, had J.J. put some effort into it. As it is, it's a not-bad tale of a castle in Ireland under a curse, and of a couple of bloody deaths. The most interesting thing is that it starts off almost mid-story, with the narrator awaiting the hour when some evil thing will walk the halls of the castle. Sounds a lot more shuddersome than it is; it could have been better.

Next up was a tale by Roger Pater, who had a story in the first half. "The Astrologer's Legacy" is told all in flashback, with little actually happening in the "present" of the story, but it's still interesting. Part of Pater's cycle of tales in which a Catholic priest encounters supernatural doings, it has the hero at a lavish dinner party and inspecting an odd piece of silver. It turns out to have an unhealthy fascination for one of the party, and turns out to have a past associated with a secret cult of Satanists. Despite the rather distant nature of the tale, it's still halfway interesting.

Next was J. Sheridan le Fanu's "Sir Dominick's Bargain," a sardonic tale of an impoverished Irish noble who strikes a deal with the devil for limitless riches. This is a popular tale that's been anthologized often, and dramatized a few times for radio, but it's jolly good fun, with a satisfying final twist and enough gruesomeness to keep it from seeming too proper and twee. Of course, it's le Fanu, how can you go wrong?

Another story of an evil bargain, "The Bargain of Rupert Orange" by Vincent O'Sullivan, is adequate, I'd have to say. (Nothing I've read of O'Sullivan measures up to "When I was Dead," which makes me wonder.) This is another tale of an impoverished young man who makes a deal...but is it the devil? Is it really a deal? It's all so oblique...you can see the thematic treatment of the deal-with-the-devil, but there's precious little brimstone to be sniffed here. In fact, from my reading of it, what goes on could be explained by mere chance, the fleeting nature of fame, and self-destructive personalities. All well and good in their place, but this ain't the place.

"The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains" by Frederick Marryat (an excerpt from his novel THE PHANTOM SHIP) does duty as the collection's example of lycanthropy. It's actually quite enjoyable. A nobleman, on the run with three children, ends up falling in love with a mysterious woman and marrying her. Of course, she frightens the children so, and finally they figure out that she's a werewolf. But there's blood to be shed before it's all over, and (surprisingly) a curse that needs to be played out before it's all over. Actually, not a bad story at all, and dripping with gothic atmosphere.

And next up is more Roger Pater! "A Porta Inferi" is a tale of possession. It pretty much drops the ball when dealing with how the possession occurred or why, BUT...its depiction of a man possessed is compelling. I don't believe in such things, but if they did happen, Pater's story would be a great diagnostic tool. (Makes me wonder if that wasn't the intent.) There's a collection of Pater's Catholic-themed stories out there; I may have to find one, because he's turning out to be an interesting voice in the field of supernatural fiction.

Richard Barham's "Jerry Jarvis' Wig" tells how a cloddish working-class man commits a horrible crime under the influence of a castoff wig. Yes, a wig. Ghost stories are inherently absurd, but this pushes the envelope, and it may have been intended that way. Still, it's overloaded with antiquated language, and is hard going. Not recommended.

Another problem was John Guinan's "The Watcher O' the Dead," which is full of Irish dialect and vague plotting. It has something to do with someone taking the place of a soul doomed to wander a cemetery until doomsday...but the story, published in the 20s, hasn't aged well.

Finally, "Toussel's Pale Bride" by W. B. Seabrook ends the collection. Taken from a book called THE MAGIC ISLAND, it's a straightforward tale of a mixed-race girl who marries an Afro-Carib planter, and who is driven mad on the night of her first anniversary by a quite gruesome experience. Meant to represent "Voodoo," there actual zilch in the way of voodoo practices, but the final gruesome scene seems more like something from a serial-killer story than horror. The story has a journalistic flair to it, and I wonder if it's not meant to depict real events, or masquerade as true events. Hard to say. I may have to hunt down that book.

So, that's it for Summers. He had odd tastes, that's for sure, but some of the stories were loads of fun, and at least it brought Roger Pater to my notice.

I've got a few books to read next, but soon, if not right up next, I'll be doing another anthology, GASLIGHT GRIMOIRE, subtitled "Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes," and co-edited by Dust & Corruption fan Charles Prepolec. Yeah, I owe him that much, at least.

Till next time, my darlings....enjoy your springtime.