When Eddie receives an early morning call for help, he catches the next plane to Britain. His friend, Dr. Peter Maurice, a renowned psychologist on a UK book tour with his wife Sylvia, has been accused of multiple, brutal murders and is about to be arrested.
Eddie learns that the deadly intrigue goes further back than the present time — to a two-hundred-year-old manuscript, written by Franz Anton Mesmer, and recently purchased by Dr. Maurice. The manuscript, written in Old Italian, appears to be a catalyst that sparks killing sprees, as history shows that Mesmer’s great-great-granddaughter, who smuggled the manuscript out of East Germany, became the first of many women to die horribly at the hands of a demented serial killer. But what’s the connection?
Eddie arranges to have the manuscript translated, but when he goes to collect it, he discovers the translator dead, her head brutally crushed by a killer who specializes in breaking bones very slowly. Eddie’s investigation unearths gruesome information about England’s notorious Newgate Prison, once frequented by Mesmer but long since burned to the ground.
The paparazzi are all over Eddie and Dr. Maurice’s wife as Eddie works to disprove Scotland Yard’s claim that Dr. Maurice is a monster. Eddie is determined to help the good Doctor and prove the police wrong. But are they?

Harrison, Mike

ECW Press Ltd.

An Eddie Dancer mystery, Toronto, 2006

Canada - English Language, Canada

Chicago, 2006

Smart-mouthed P.I. Eddie Dancer returns for another hard-edged trip to the underground, this time to England after a psychologist friend calls in a panic: he has been accused of multiple, grisly murders, and is about to be arrested. It all began with a manuscript, the doctor claims—a 200-year-old treatise by the great Franz Anton Mesmer, who may have been dabbling in dark forms of mental manipulation. People who come in contact with the paper all end up murdered, from Mesmer's great-great-granddaughter, who smuggled it out of Germany, to Dancer's translator, who meets her fate at the brutal hands of a serial killer. Once Eddie teams up with an unlikely ally, the two of them unearth valuable information about the killings, the killer, and the power the manuscript has over their minds and, possibly, over the grave itself.<br>

A psychologist accused of serial murder while on a book tour in England, calls Calgary PI Eddie Dancer to England to clear his name. Dancer discovers that Dr. Maurice had agreed to purchase an ancient manuscript written by Franz Anton Mesmer, and that it appears to be the catalyst for the killing spree

2025-11-01