The Forbidden: A Novel
We’re in Paris, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Dr. Paul Clément’s interests in the techniques of human resuscitation—interests that started growing when, working at a mission hospital in the French Antilles, he witnessed the shocking death of a young man who appeared to have been turned into a zombie—have taken over his life, leading him to take the biggest risk a man can take: to bring himself back from death so he can see what those who have been resuscitated have experienced. What he discovers, though, is a lot more terrifying than even he had expected. Written in a lightly ornamented style to match its Victorian setting, this is a full-on horror story that grabs us pretty much from the first paragraph and doesn’t let go until it’s good and ready to. For fans of gothic horror, a tasty treat. --David Pitt