HORROR SHOW: Tiger Girl - Gordon Casserly

Despite the subtitle on the original first edition cover of this genuine supernatural novel Tiger Girl (1932) is not really a love story. But is most definitely set in the jungles of India. True, there is an underlying love triangle being played out between two men vying for the attention of the young woman, but it is not the focus of the plot. Why it was marketed as a romantic love story amazes me. Anyone hoping for a hearts and flowers traditional romance would have been sorely disappointed -- most likely appalled -- at what they found in the pages of this outlandish ghost story. Here's just a sample:

• Vampiric gray-furred tiger
• Demonic female phantoms
• Reanimated corpses
• Astral projection
• Telekinesis
• Death by mind control
• Cult that performs human sacrifice

Personally, I was not expecting a love story at all. And I was genuinely thrilled with what I found in this enthralling and thoroughly researched work of supernatural fiction. More thrills than I ever expected, in fact.

Alan Stuart is our hero, Margery Webb our plucky heroine, and Morton, Stuart's rival and the novel's human antagonist. When a a grey skinned tiger invades the Indian tea plantation owned by Margery's father Stuart turns hunter determined to track down the man-killer. He is warned by the superstitious locals that this will be no easy task for the tiger he is looking for is not an animal but a demon. Legend has it the shaitan kills only women and drains their bodies of blood. Bullets do not seem to harm this predator as Stuart soon finds out in his several battles with the phantom beast.

Meanwhile Morton plots revenge after he is spurned by Margery who he was hoping to marry. Morton allies himself with a powerful yogi who practices black magic and has paranormal skills including astral projection and the ability to revive corpses. Stuart must also contend with a mad elephant on the rampage and a bizarre religious cult that worships Kali for whom the tiger acts as a sort of human sacrifice delivery service.

A scene in which a minor character who, while looking for the rogue elephant hides himself high in a tree, witnesses the cult's ritual ceremony is one of the most gruesome in the book. But the climax of the book surpasses the cult sequence with genuine horror and follows with several scenes of more mystery and supernatural incidents. The action keeps building to an unnerving finale with a completely unexpected twist similar to something one might encounter in a murder mystery.

Tiger Girl has been one of the most elusive supernatural thrillers for decades having been out of print for over seventy years. Vintage copies are difficult to track down or absurdly priced when they ever so rarely turn up for sale. Thanks to Bruin Asylum and the efforts of some savvy collectors of supernatural fiction there is a new and affordable edition of this minor classic. Bruin Asylum's reissue has a brief but detailed biography of Gordon Casserly, highlighting his military service and life in India, as well as discussing his handful of adventure and supernatural novels. The new edition ends with an appendix consisting of an engrossing chapter from Occult Science in India and Among the Ancients (1875) by Louis Jacolliot, a non-fiction work briefly mentioned in the novel's story. His writing is just as evocative, fascinating and thrilling as Casserly's fictional story.

I urge fans of  forgotten supernatural and horror novels to buy a copy of this formerly out of print minor masterpiece. This attractively produced volume proves that it really was worth the long wait to have a new copy at a very affordable price.

FFB: Possession - L. P. Davies

US 1st edition
(Doubleday Crime Club, 1976)

THE STORY: After his half brother Eddie dies in a motorcycle crash Morgan Astey travels to the quiet Wiltshire village of St. Martin to visit Eddie's grave and gather his belongings. To his shock he discovers the gravesite desecrated. Rumors surface of the cemetery vandalism being related to Macumba, a Brazilian syncretic religion that blends worship of Catholic saints with rites and rituals of African religions. Among other things Macumba followers believe that spirits of the dead can temporarily inhabit the living. As Morgan tries to find out why someone would dig up Eddie's grave Albert Cranshaw, a local gardener and odd job man, begins to behave strangely. He shows up in Eddie's old room, sits down to tea with Eddie's old landlady, and calls people by nicknames only Eddie knew. Is it possible that Eddie has returned from the grave and has Albert in his Possession (1976)?

THE CHARACTERS: Morgan Astey does not plan to spend as much time in St. Martin ,but the disturbance to his half brother's grave raises a variety of question and the news of a possible Macumba cult involved is as fascinating to him as it is aggravating. Another thing that he finds curious is that everyone tells him that Eddie's face was unharmed in the accident, one that should have shattered his body as he supposedly lost control of his motorcycle near a craggy hairpin turn by a rocky cliffside. And yet Eddie's body suffered only a few broken bones and a broken neck. Morgan is further suspicious of foul play after talking to a knowledgeable mechanic working on repairs to Eddie's motorcycle. He tells Morgan of some strange things found on the bike that would be inconsistent with a wreck on that cliffside.

UK 1st edition
(Robert Hale, 1976)

Morgan teams up with Pat, daughter of the owner of St. Martin's newspaper, to ferret out the truth about Eddie's death and the strange behavior of Albert who seems to be "the new Eddie." In their adventures they meet Prof. Boyle, an eccentric academic who studies the slow worm and conducts weird scientific experiments; Boyle's sinister butler/companion George who may have a criminal past; a clique of corrupt millionaire businessmen; and Albert Cranshaw, the man with an inexplicable behavior change that may be rooted in the occult.

One of the memorable supporting players is Detective Sergeant Wright whose skill in manipulating and exploiting people is enviable. Wright has made it his business to know everyone's business and he uses his knowledge of the private lives of St Martin's citizenry to his advantage. So talented is Wright is getting others to do his bidding that Morgan realizes almost too late the policeman has employed him as an unofficial investigator. In suggesting to Morgan mysterious aspects about Eddie's death and inveigling him to seek answers to those questions Wright manages to get Morgan to do his job for him. Toward the end of the book Wright congratulates Morgan for successfully acting out in this unofficial capacity in one of their many tea room conversations. The policeman has an almost unquenchable craving for the various bakery treats offered at the many tea shops and cafes in town. He is always meeting Morgan in one of these shops where he can get yet another sampling of a tasty biscuit or tea cake, always proffering them to Morgan who almost always refuses.

INNOVATIONS: In Possession we have yet another unusual treatment of loss of identity from the pen of L. P. Davies. In previous novels Davies used amnesia in his crime novels or blended loss of identity with science fiction in telling stories of extraterrestrial aliens passing themselves off as humans and vice versa, yet always managing to turn any novel into one of mystery and detection, even if it's more of a metaphysical detection than a police investigation. In his later career Davies turned away from science fiction themes and picked up on the 1970s trend in popular fiction of using occult and supernatural themes in his plots. The background of Macumba in Possession is minimal at best yet makes it all the more intriguing when trying to figure out if the mystery of Albert Cranshaw's personality transformation is a con job and a sinister use of extremely good acting to cover up for ulterior motives or a genuinely mystifying supernatural phenomena. I was reminded of the use of Santeria in Ramona Stewart's The Possession of Joel Delaney (1970) and the eerie other worldly events in The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1973) by Max Ehrlich, two popular contemporary occult novels that would also become movies in the late 1970s.

THINGS I LEARNED: 1. Pat, editor/reporter/Jill of all trades, has a habit of exclaiming “What the Betty Martin?” I thought maybe this was some sort of Cockney slang, but I was wrong. It’s a lot more involved than that. Ready?

On a Linguistics internet forum I discovered that the origin of this phrase first appeared in Brewer’s seminal Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Brewer claims it comes from an anecdote about a sailor who overheard someone in a foreign church utter the Latin phrase “Ah mihi, bea’te Martine” (Ah grant me, Blessed Martine). And that the sailor “could not make much out of it but it seemed to him very much like ‘All my eye and Betty Martin.’ ” Brewer defines the phrase as a regionalism that means something seen or heard is all nonsense.

St. Martin of Tours and the beggar

But wait! The Latin is probably wrong another person says. It is probably “mihi beate Mater” (Grant me, Blessed Mother). And then the debate gets very scholarly and someone goes to the trouble of quoting at length references to the phrase in a 1780 book on slang by John Badcock tracing the origin to prayers and invocations made to St. Martin of Tours, the patron saint of innkeepers and reformed drunkards. [A patron for reformed drunkards! Is there one for just plain ol’ sots who haven’t seen the blazing light of sobriety?]

Then there is someone else who believes that the Latin phrase was alluded to in a poem by Coleridge that includes the lines: “ All my I! All my I!/He’s a heretic dog who but adds Betty Martin.” And that this led to the phrase becoming misheard and interpreted as “All my eye!” which gives us the commonly heard “All my eye and Betty Martin!” another slang phrase that means basically “What a load of malarkey!” a favorite Irish exclamation in the Norris household. In the US you often hear someone say (usually a mature and older person) “My eye!” when they disbelieve someone or think something is baloney.

All of it sounds like pretty good etymological research to me. You can decide on your own if the Latin for Blessed Martin or Blessed Mater later transmogrified into Betty Martin.

2. The crux of Professor Murton Boyle’s research is studying the behavior of Anguis fragilis, described throughout the novel as a type of worm. Many jokes are made about the poor man’s dreary personality and boring life making a career out of the study of worms. Davies always leads the reader to believe he is talking about the kind of worms the early bird goes after, earthworms that is. But Davies seems not to have understood what the animal truly is. Because it’s not a worm, it’s a reptile! The confusion comes no doubt in misinterpreting literally the layman’s name of “slow worm.” Regardless of its nickname "slow worm" Anguis fragilis is nevertheless a reptile, one of two species of legless lizard and it resembles not a worm but a snake.

The differences between a snake and a legless lizard are numerous: snakes have no eyelids, legless lizards do; snakes have forked tongues, legless lizards do not, etc. In no way could it be confused with a worm. Part of Boyle’s research and one of the unusual mysteries solved involving what Pat and Morgan think is a strange hieroglyphic code reveals that the slow worms Boyle studies were taught to run through mazes. I can imagine a legless lizard, a snake like creature, learning to do this, but I absolutely cannot believe that a worm (as Davies thought the thing was) could be taught to navigate a maze no matter how simple or complex. In any case, he was terribly wrong about the creature that Boyle studies and it sort of ruins the book a bit when you get to that portion of the story.

L. P. Davies (circa 1976)

THE AUTHOR: Leslie Purnell Davies (1914-1988) was born in Crewe, England and graduated from Manchester University. In addition to writing numerous short stories under a variety of pseudonyms as well as twenty crime fiction and science fiction novels he was a pharmacist, optician, a tobacconist, and a painter in Rome. From about 1968 to the late 1970s he lived in Wales, then moved to the Canary Islands where he lived in happy retirement from writing.

FFB: The Devil Snar'd - George R. Preedy

THE STORY: Grace Fielding and her writer husband Philip have come to Medlar's Farm in Northumberland as an escape from their marital discord.  Philip is in love with Angela Campion.  Grace acknowledges the affair but refuses divorce. Perhaps this getaway will help repair whatever went wrong in their marriage. But Grace continues to obsess about Angela and her husband's philandering. When she learns of the gruesome past at Medlar's Farm, a murder by poison, and the ghost of Susanna Vavasour, Grace's life soon becomes a mix of domestic strife and psychological terror.

THE CHARACTERS:  The story in The Devil Snar'd (1932) is almost entirely told from Grace's point of view.  What begins as a tale of a stubborn woman trying to work out marital difficulties with her writer husband soon gives way to a story of obsession, jealousy, morbid imagination and revenge. The house at Medlar Farm is the site of a horrible crime of passion. Philip is thinking of using the story of the murder of an unfaithful husband that backfires as the basis for his new novel. He's unwilling to discuss his work, but Grace finds the manuscript and begins to read his novel as it progresses. She begins to see too many parallels between her life with Philip and the story of Susanna's life. She feels compelled to visit Susanna's grave before it is forever lost when engineers building a reservoir will submerge it and the neighboring church.

The relatively small cast of supporting characters include Mrs. Mace (the landlady and neighbor), a chemist, a doctor and some minor servants. The novel is almost entirely dominated by Grace and her eventual merging with the personality of long dead Susanna, either an accused murderess or a victim. One is never really sure which is true until the final pages.

ATMOSPHERE:  Grace's slow mental deterioration is conveyed with macabre touches reminiscent of Poe's morbid imagination as well as 18th century British Gothic writers. Spider and insect imagery dominate the eerily descriptive narrative.  They appear everywhere, crawl over everything, then disappear into the ever present shadows at Medlar Farm. The novel takes its title from images on a carved stone keystone above the arch of the doorway to the Crompton Old Church which guards the graveyard where Susanna Vavasour is buried: "a grotesque fiend with medieval horns and tail was pursuing a thin creature in grave-clothes who turned at bay, and with an expression of the utmost horror, cast a net over the enemy who writhed in astonished helplessness." It's a powerful image that will haunt Grace for the rest or the book - this idea of the seemingly helpless victim who "suddenly became the aggressor." She cannot help but link this shrouded figure with her vision of Susanna, though she has no idea what the woman ever looked like.

At the midpoint in the book Grace tells her husband the story of a man who was practicing the "evil eye" by staring at toads and striking them dead ("Just get them somewhere where they could not move and gaze at them until they died.")  Then one day he got a toad "which seemed to suspect his designs." It tried to escape and when flight was not possible turned itself on the man and stared right back at him. The man found he could not look away and they continued to gaze at one another until it was too late. In the morning the man was found dead on the floor of his laboratory. Similar to the images of the stone carving known as "The Devil Snared" Grace cannot erase this story from her mind. It reminds her of the legend of the murder at Medlar Farm. Soon she is seeing Susanna's ghost, they have conversations, and together they begin to plot a murder inspired by the crime that cost Susanna her life.

QUOTES:   In the big house it was not [sane and normal] -- the maladjustment between herself and Philip seemed to affect everything.

The loneliness penetrated deep into her being; the shut-up church, the empty house--were far more emblematic of solitude than the lonely land and water. The people who had lived here, been buried here, had left behind them a heritage of utter desolation.

She was so horrified by this lurid illumination which was worse than any darkness, that she tried, for the first time in her life, to pray, to honestly send up an appeal for help to some high and merciful Power. She could not do this, but she could check the horror which had been breaking on her -- and she remained for a while mute and immobile, crouched below the corner..."

She remembered a horrid experiment which she had once read of: a mouse and a scorpion were once set by some inquisitive man of science under a glass bell, where finally, after a dreadful duel, the timid beast killed the poisonous insect (sic). The same story, of course, as that of the man and the toad. It was her story.

"How fond you are of that word decent," smiled Mrs. Fielding. "What does it mean, nowadays, I wonder?"

Marjorie Bowen, circa 1939
(photo by Howard Coster,
courtesy of National Portrait Gallery)

THE AUTHOR: "George Preedy" is one of the several pseudonyms used by Gabrielle Margaret Long, a prolific writer perhaps best known under her most popular alter ego of Marjorie Bowen. Using a variety of pen names Long wrote some fine examples of ghost stories as well as Regency romances, adventure and crime fiction. As "Joseph Shearing" she wrote a series of historical crime thrillers, based on actual murder cases, some of which are the best examples of that subgenre.

EASY TO FIND? This is a true rarity. I was lucky to stumble across a copy being sold for the unheard of price of £3.99 from a UK bookshop who clearly hadn't a clue what they were selling. Currently there are only two copies for sale from online booksellers each priced at $300 or more. This short novel was first published by Ernest Benn Ltd. as part of their "New Ninepenny Novels", a short-lived experiment in mass market paperbacks comprised of stalwart bestselling writers in genre fiction categories of mystery, romance, adventure and fantasy. There is one UK reprint issued by Cassell & Co in 1933 that includes The Devil Snar'd along with Dr. Chaos, another of Bowen's short (and very scarce) horror novels written under the Preedy pen name. There is no US edition at all.

The Devil Snar'd is so startling and arresting in its use of Gothic imagery and horror motifs I cannot understand why it hasn't been reprinted in over 75 years. Probably because it's so damn hard to find. I'm very willing to offer up my copy to any enterprising publisher interested in reviving this minor Gothic masterpiece. It deserves rediscovery by a wide audience appreciative of macabre fiction.

FFB: Voices in an Empty Room - Philip Loraine

THE STORY: Psychic experiments, decades old family secrets, ghostly possession, a forgotten crime... Something strange is happening in the house at 337 Gilman Street in San Francisco. Ellie Owen Spencer and her brother Richie have rented the main house to two women who every night conduct psychic experiments with the spirits of Ellie's ancestors. She and her brother know nothing of what's going on in the house ever since the took up residence in the adjunct coachouse. But then Ellie starts calling her brother and fiance John Lamb by the name Michael. When one night Ellie will not stop writhing on her bed in an apparently paranormally induced sexual ecstasy repeating the name Michael in a dark reverie John and Richie turn to Dr. Hillier for help. The mysteries are only beginning. What exactly happened in the house so long ago? What are those women up to? Are they responsible for what appears to be a case of spiritual possession?

THE CHARACTERS: Voices in an Empty Room (1973) is told from multiple viewpoints. John Lamb is the primary story teller, but Loraine has divided his book into four cleverly constructed sections that allow him to shift viewpoints and alternate plot lines among the cast of characters. The main plot seems to be about the mystery surrounding Ellie's sudden personality transformation and how this affects the burgeoning romance between John and his fiancee. But Loraine adds more to his labyrinthine story.

A second storyline follows the weird ghostly communications manifested by Lulu Jenkins at the behest of Amelia Guardi. Lulu is a bona fide medium with clairvoyant powers, she can see and hear then vocally recreate scenes from the past by channeling various spirits, and yet also predicts the future. She had these uncanny abilities since she was a child. But she is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier and has been easily manipulated by keener, more intelligent people like her former husband who was eager to make a quick buck off of her supernatural ability. Mrs. Guardi, a wealthy woman from Boston who has come to San Francisco to write a book about spiritualism, takes advantage of Lulu's acute powers in an effort to collect proof of life beyond death and that communication with the dead can indeed benefit the living. She is planning to write a book on the subject and gain fame, if not notoriety, in peeling back the veil that separates the living from the dead.

The strong contrast between the two women is handled masterfully and not without a sardonic wit and frequent ironic jabs. It is clear that each will pay dearly for their experiments in the paranormal and mucking about with concepts and events they have no control over. Lulu, a pathetic portrait of wasted talent who is victimized and exploited by corrupt individuals, is not without one fine moment of heroism. In one of her best scenes Lulu's transformation from mouse to lion is triggered by a nearly forgotten memory. Mrs. Guardi repeats a line uttered by Lulu's con artist husband just before he stole her savings and abandoned her. It's a perfect moment, but is ultimately one tinged with irony and failure.

Richie, Ellie's brother, seems initially to appear as a comic character. He's a typical caustically witty queen who turns up in 1970s pop fiction from writers who wanted to appear hip by tossing into their books a token gay character. That Loraine insists on referring to him as a homosexual throughout lessens the intended humor and yet Richie really does have most of the best lines. Luckily, Richie proves to be a firebrand in a couple of key scenes. Hell hath no fury like an angry gay guy. Don't mess with Richie, especially when he's doing his damnedest to save his sister from a hellish malady.

Dr. Hillier, the family physician guarding too many family secrets, and Godfrey Bellfort, the brother of the deeply troubled Stella Bellfort Spencer whose spirit is living again through Lulu round out the cast. Each of these men is as finely drawn as the lead characters and each has striking moments of importance related to the multi-layered story.

INNOVATIONS: Loraine has divided the book into four separate sections: The Living, The Psi, The Dead, The Coming Together.  As each title suggests the story progresses from an expository first section introducing us to the main players, then adding in the supernatural elements in the second section (psi is a term used both by the parapsychology world and pop culture to collectively refer to psychic phenomenon). The third section further develops the plot when the book turns into a literary detective story as John and Richie delve into the archives of the Lilienthal library and we are given a richly detailed history of the Harold Spencer and Owen Spencer families and the incidents that led to a covered up crime. Finally, in the last section the past and present plotlines converge culminating in a unexpected twist followed by the grisly and bloody finale in a suitably Grand Guignol style.

Voices in an Empty Room is one of the better supernatural novels to come out of the 1970s when books featuring psychic powers and demonic or ghostly possession exploded in popular fiction and dominated the shelves of the newly created Horror sections in bookstores. Drawing on the motifs and conventions of Victorian sensation and Gothic fiction Loraine has written a tale of madness, ghosts, and corporeal possession that seems less a story of 1973 than one more suited to the era of its influences. He contemporizes these motifs with an ample amount of sex (example: Ellie's possession by the ghostly Michael is triggered by a lovemaking session with John) and topical references, but the emphasis on family honor, closely guarded secrets, and the preservation of the fabricated story of a troubled relative's life is far removed from the hipper themes of most 1970s novels.

Nevertheless, Loraine's masterful talent in storytelling and his often incisive writing hold sway over the reader. He has structured the novel in such a way with his alternating storylines and slow revelation of multiple secrets that the reader is compelled to move on anxious to get to the end. This page turning frenzy is coupled with the delivery of a truly surprising eleventh hour shock.

QUOTES:  Lamb had always believed that any city worth loving must not only be beautiful but full of interesting looking people, with a dash of eccentricity; San Francisco was well endowed with these virtues. He liked a city to be capable of instant generosity, as well as of reserving more secret and more intimate pleasures for those who will love her more deeply...

...the whole persona of this sibylline apparition scared the hell out of [Ellie]; and at the same time she was sure that unlike other people who used the expression "Believe me, I know," Mrs. Jenkins was speaking the exact truth. There was no doubt in Ellie's mind that she did know--but what? It seemed that this question was going to remain forever unanswered...

Mrs. Guardi was a woman who made careful plans and carried them out to the letter and to their conclusion. That there was something almost manic in her determination did not worry her; in this flabby and directionless world, it was the only way to get things done; it was true that occasionally other people had to suffer, but then people had always had to suffer for any great cause.

EASY TO FIND? I found several copies for sale of both US and UK editions,  hardcover and paperback. Most of them are affordably priced. Only a few of Loraine's books have been released in digital editions, but not Voices in an Empty Room.