The master of the day of judgment
By: Leo Perutz ; translated from the German by Eric Mosbacher.
Contributors: Mosbacher, Eric, 1903-.
Edition: 1st North American ed.
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 1994
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 147
Work titles: Meister des jüngsten Tages.
Description: Vienna, 1909. When the celebrated actor Eugen Bischoff is found shot dead in his garden pavilion, suspicion falls immediately on Baron von Yosch, a well-to-do army officer who was once the lover of the dead man's wife, Dina. By all appearances, the actor took his own life - two shots had rung out, and the door was locked from inside - but clearly someone, or some thing, drove him to it.

While Dina's brother prepares to expose the baron, two of the actor's friends accept his claims of innocence and lend their support to solve the mystery. Meanwhile, within a few days other, similar suicides are reported. And what started out as a straightforward effort to establish the actor's last deeds becomes a search through the ages, in an atmosphere of deepening terror, for an invisible enemy identified only through the actor's dying whisper, "...the Day of Judgment."

. In this probing mystery, Leo Perutz combines his hallmark blend of suspense and the fantastic in a tale that leads back into history and forward to the bloodred trumpets of the Apocalypse, to a day of judgment that each of us carries within himself.