Steeped in the folklore of Eastern Europe, and set in the shadow of
Nazi darkness erupting just beyond the Czech border, this bone-chilling,
richly imagined novel is propulsively entertaining, and impossible to
put down.
"A wildly entertaining story...Russell has created a truly frightening
story." --The New York Times Book Review
Czechoslovakia, 1935: Viktor Kosárek, a newly trained psychiatrist who
studied under Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for
the Criminally Insane. The facility is located in a medieval mountaintop
castle surrounded by forests, on a site that is well known for
concealing dark secrets going back many centuries. The asylum houses six
inmates--the country's most treacherous killers--known to the terrified
public as the Devil's Six. Viktor intends to use a new medical technique
to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a
phenomenon he calls The Devil Aspect. Yet as he begins to learn the
stunning secrets of these patients, he must face the unnerving
possibility that these six may share a darker truth.
Meanwhile, in Prague, fear grips the city as a phantom serial killer
emerges in the dark alleys. Police investigator Lukas Smolak, desperate
to locate the culprit (a copycat of Jack the Ripper), turns to Viktor
and the doctors at Hrad Orlu for their expertise with the psychotic
criminal mind. And Viktor finds himself wrapped up in a case more
terrifying than he could have ever imagined.
