Physicist Lionel Barrett leads a small team into the Belasco House, a Maine estate notorious for decades of depraved violence and supernatural hostility. Commissioned by a dying millionaire to prove the existence of an afterlife, Barrett employs a massive scientific machine called the Reversor to neutralize electromagnetic hauntings. He is joined by two mediums—the spiritualist Florence Tanner and the physical medium Ben Fischer—who approach the mansion’s aggressive manifestations through clairvoyance and telekinesis. As the house exerts its influence, the investigators face brutal physical assaults and psychological manipulation rooted in the house’s history of perversion.
Horror enthusiasts and readers interested in the conflict between rationalism and spiritualism read this for its clinical approach to the haunted house subgenre. It appeals to those who prefer supernatural fiction grounded in pseudoscientific theory rather than purely Gothic tropes. The reader finishes the book with a visceral understanding of how repressed trauma and physical energy can theoretically sustain a haunting. It provides a stark, graphic depiction of a siege where logic and faith are systematically dismantled by a calculated, predatory environment.
Practical, clear-cut and escapist; an easy read.
Best for readers like The Escapist Adventurer. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1971
- Language
- EN
