Author Description

this Striking Debut—a Suspenseful Thriller Inspired By Historical Facts—is Being Compared To the Historian And the Alienist.upon Freud's Arrival In Manhattan In 1909, A Beautiful Young Woman Is Found Dead, Dangling From A Chandelier. Days Later A Second Intended Victim Daringly Escapes The Killer, But Suffering From Hysteria, She Has Little Memory Of The Attack. Freud And His Devoted American Disciple, Dr. Stratham Younger, Are Called In To Analyze Her, But The Investigation Grows More Complex With Each New Discovery. janet Maslin as the Interpretation Of Murder Races Past Ravished Damsels, Sinister Aristocrats, Architectural Marvels (the Building Of The Manhattan Bridge), Hysterical Symptoms, A Hamlet-freud Nexus And Downright Criminal Wordplay (there Are More Things In Heaven And Earth, Herr Professor, Than Are Dreamt In Your Psychology; Sometimes A Catarrh, I M Afraid, Is Only A Catarrh), It Cobbles Together Its Own Brand Of Excitement. That Excitement Is As Palpable As It Is Peculiar. In A Book That Pays Too Much Homage To Contemporary Suspense Templates, There Are Still Deep Reserves Of Insight, Data, Wit And Anecdote Upon Which The Author Ingeniously Draws. — The New York Times