Séance Infernale

1

The receptionist's black leather pumps echoed on the marble floor of the foyer. She escorted Alex Whitman past an ornamental fountain until they reached a bulky oakwood door at the end of a granite-paneled hallway.

Andrew Valdano turned his leather chair to face Whitman.

"Mr. Whitman. Please." He motioned at the chair for guests across the desk. Whitman had already sat himself into it.

Valdano could have been between fifty and sixty-five years of age. His mustache, a lead gray; his ink-black hair retained its color. His dusty complexion peered out beneath custom-made silk.

Valdano's desk was a carved brown mahogany with four seated winged griffins surrounding its base. Behind him, the window looked out on a Los Angeles autumn afternoon. Outside on the building's Gothic façade, granite gargoyles peered out over the city, their claws clasping their grotesque heads.

On the room's walls, framed film posters mounted on duck canvas, reminders of elegant works of the past: Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages; The Birth of a Nation; M; The Big Parade. Photographs hung on the walls, of figures who had directed these masterpieces: D. W. Griffith; King Vidor; Josef von Sternberg; F. W. Murnau.

Valdano broke the silence. "Where is it?" He had the tone of someone used to getting what he wanted.

"By all means, skip the opening titles," Whitman said.

Whitman had been hired to track down a copy of The Cat Creeps. In this film, an heiress (Helen Twelvetrees) arrives at a remote mansion to claim her fortune and, once there, is terrorized by an escaped maniac ("The Cat") and the predatory would-be heirs, who are also her relatives. Hardly an admirable film; another take on the "old dark house" motif trying to capitalize on the success of Paul Leni's The Cat and the Canary, of which Creeps was a talkie remake. However, The Cat Creeps had been considered lost for decades, and that made it a desirable acquisition, especially for private

JONATHAN SKARITON was born in Athens, Greece, and attended the University of Edinburgh and the University of Wales, Bangor. He has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology. Skariton works as a cognitive neuroscientist for the largest fragrance manufacturer in the world. He lives in Kent, England.

Excitement about Jonathan Skariton's
SÉANCE INFERNALE

"A rip-roaring pulp-fiction thriller filled with sinister subterranean spaces-labyrinths, tunnels, caves-in an exotically-rendered Edinburgh. But uniquely, it is also an eye-opening excursion into the origins of cinema, as Skariton, meshing fact with fantasy, explores the hidden history of the all-but-unknown inventor of moving pictures. Irresistible."
-Foster Hirsch, author of Film Noir: The Dark Side of the Screen

"Thrilling . . .mesmerizing."
-Marilyn Stasio, NY Times Book Review

"Just enough intrigue to keep your fascination . . . captivating . . . entertaining; the gothic and supernatural atmosphere of the novel is its most engaging facet and this alone will most certainly keep the average mystery/thriller reader on the edge of their seat until the heart pounding final pages."
-Michael Thomas Barry, NY Journal of Books

"A post-millennial gothic ripsnorter [that] blends old-fashioned suspense and up-to-the-minute sadism in the dark streets and even darker underbelly of Edinburgh . . . An intricately designed thriller . . . This debut novel resembles a series of trap doors springing open and shut and open again . . . Its basic premise fascinates, and its fog-shrouded intrigue keeps your head in the game."
-Kirkus Reviews

"Séance Infernal is a menacing Gothic nightmare, a love letter to the dawn of cinema, to the ghost-ridden city of Edinburgh, and to the golden age of pulp fiction. There are subterranean tunnels and immolations; there's knife play and gunfire, alchemy and patent theft. It's a whipsaw ride, but always good, giddy fun."
-Scott Smith, author of A Simple Plan & The Ruins