París, 1872. La medicina es ya una ciencia moderna y lucha por deshacerse de supersticiones. El joven y prometedor doctor Paul Clément, entusiasmado con sus experimentos con el sistema nervioso, utiliza la electricidad para resucitar a pacientes fallecidos. En su ambición por ir más allá, y obsesionado por entender la relación entre cuerpo y alma, Clément decide experimentar sobre sí mismo, pero esta decisión cambiará su vida para siempre

Paul Clement is a doctor in late 19th century France who, after witnessing an inexplicable event in St. Sebastien, returns to Paris to begin studying the nervous system. He believes that he has found a way to restore life to the lifeless and learns that people who “die” and return often experience a tunnel, white light, and a sense of peace. He determines to try his method upon himself, but instead of those experiences, he finds his soul in Hell and only with great difficulty can he return. But his brush with death has not left him unchanged; indeed, it has changed him completely, and very terribly…. I really like Frank Tallis’ Liebermann books (about a psychiatrist in Vienna, a friend of Freud) and decided to try his horror (which he writes as F. R. Tallis) because of that series. While "The Forbidden" was okay, it really just plays on old voodoo and demons-from-hell stereotypes, which means the reader knows the outcome of almost every scene and certainly every event. Mr. Tallis’ writing is quite vivid, so read it for that rather than for originality. ( )

Velmi klasicky horror, na takovy mam pri rymicce naladu, zadne potoky krve, atmosfera, ale zadny akcnak. Zombici, co jsou hned odhaleni jako podvod. Vhodne intro pro zahady v zivote racionalniho vedce-lekare na konci 19. stoleti. Prvni ctvrtina je takovy ctivejsi Raymond Moody v noir stylu:-) Ale pak to vezme sesup a to primo do pekla- k cemu se nemuze zvrhnout lekarsky experiment!:-) A tak doktor bojuje nejdriv sam se sebou, pak s demonem...k exorcismu pridava i sve lekarsko-vedecke objevne postupy. Ale zvitezi!:-) ( )

3.5 Stars

This novel is a hard one for me to rate.

On the one hand, it shows the author’s engrossing skills at setting and descriptions. The setting of 1870’s Paris, descriptions of hospitals and churches, details on the emerging field of neurological treatments with electricity, and the pathways of Hell itself are all brought to very vivid life. I would definitely advise some caution, however, when the reader reads the scenes from Hell or the descriptive scenes of demonic possession; the author takes a no-holds-barred approach and brings the definition of “hell” to sickeningly bright life.

And once the story really got rolling, the reader is taken on an intriguing journey as a man tries to find redemption and fight the evil that he himself brought into the world. Once Paul is possessed and starts to show the symptoms, the reader is kept engaged by trying to anticipate Paul’s next moves and finds themselves sucked in, sometimes despite themselves (thinking the exorcism stuff here), reading page and page to find the resolution to this terror in late 1800’s France.

Yet, the author makes a glaring error that I found myself having a hard time getting over. At the start of the novel, there is a lot of “told” scenes, Paul describing how he ended up in the Caribbean, starting his career in resuscitation experiments, and his budding medical career. As a result, I had a hard time connecting with him as his possession and struggle against evil escalated. I was kept intrigued enough to want to finish the book and see how everything played out. But I felt almost an invisible wall between Paul and I that kept me from really caring about him as an individual.

This book has some very intriguing story ideas, and the author knows what he’s doing when describing the setting for his characters. Yet, deciding to start the book out with telling his readers what’s happening rather than having them experience the events left me cold to the main character and his ultimate status as an individual. I’m giving this book a 3.5 stars but rounding down to a 3; if I can’t connect with the main person telling this story, then I’m not connecting with the book itself. Not sure if I’d recommend the book, but I think I’m intrigued enough with the descriptive nature of the author’s work and the interesting story ideas. Who knows? I’m going to go out of my way to hunt down more works, but if one fell in my lap, I’d probably read more.

Note: Book received for free via Good Reads First Reads program in exchange for honest review. ( )

When ambitious Doctor Paul Clément takes a job at the mission hospital on Saint Sébastien, he has dreams of discovering cures for tropical diseases. What he finds is a place where the black arts are just a way of life. After witnessing the ritualistic murder of a young man, said to be one of the living dead, he is forbidden to speak of what he has seen.

On returning to Paris, Clément’s attention turns to studying the nervous system and resuscitation. He is told of patients who have apparently died, been brought back to life, and whilst suspended between life and death, experience what they believe to be heaven. Clément attempts a daring experiment in order to confirm these extraordinary reports, but the outcome is wholly unexpected.

Could it be that when he is resuscitated, he brings something back with him – an ancient evil, so powerful that it can never be destroyed? Is the good doctor slowly succumbing to madness, or has he really passed through the gates of hell? ( )