The Devil Aspect

By Craig Russell
2019
432 pages. Audio: 15 hours and 23 minutes
Fiction

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Almost everyone knows the gist of Robert Louis Stevenson’ tale, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, though I must say that surprisingly few have actually read it. It is the port that has launched 1,000 ships. There are movies and a play based directly on his story, but many many more works that draw from his premise without directly retelling it. And of course, Stevenson is working on a tradition as old as Scripture itself. That battle between good and evil that is taking place in every human being resonates across time and cultures.

I admit my weakness for reworkings of the Gothic horror tale. The ability to take the old tropes and do something original or interesting with them is a great challenge. So I offer to you a worthy modern attempt in this direction: The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell. Who could resist the delightfully pithy subtitle tucked away on the copyright page: The strange truth behind the occurrences at Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane?

What do we have here? A serial killer who reminds us very much of Jack the Ripper? Check. An asylum full of colorful homicidal maniacs? Check. A haunted castle? Check. A gloomy but exotic backdrop (Prague)? Check. A dogged police investigator determined to find his man? Check. A cutting-edge psychologist trained under Jung and carrying demons of his own? Check. A very scary world in which the Nazis are threatening Czechoslovakia? Check. A young Jewish woman with very bad dreams? Check.

But of course, with this kind of book it’s not just the ingredients but also how they’re put together. And I assure you Russell combines them confidently and creatively in this novel. I have to give the parental warning on this one. The murders are incredibly violent, although the book (in my opinion) never devolves into violence porn. But it is a horror novel. There are plenty of twists and turns, and the book is a detective yarn as well as a Gothic horror novel. In fact, a lot of the fun is trying to figure out which one it really is.

This novel won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. But if you like this kind of thing, the best reason to read the novel is that it’s an exciting page-turner. If you insist on having a deeper meaning to your reads, it also offers a meditation on good and evil, human nature, and God and Satan. It also reflects on mythology, the stories we tell, and what they say about us. It also gives you a taste of Jungian psychology if you find you can’t live without that. I think this book is a slightly more sophisticated form of a Stephen King novel, although that might be unfair to both Russell and King. I guess it partly depends on whether you want your haunted houses in Maine or Czechoslovakia.

I am always looking for the perfectly scary book and, although this isn’t exactly it, I still strongly advise you to read this one with the lights on and to make sure there are no shadows in the corners of the room. When you read the book you will see why.