BOOK DETAILS
Trade paper ISBN-13: 978-1941147238 List Price: $16.99 U.S. Pages: 164 Published: 2014 |
Our Lady of Pain (1974)
John Blackburn With a new introduction by Greg Gbur Book Description
A centuries-old Eastern European legend of a deadly curse. Three hardened criminals who die horribly after being driven mad by terror. A washed-up actress hellbent on revenge against her critics. A sadistic doctor who takes pleasure in mutilating his patients. What is the connection between them? Reporter Harry Clay will risk his life and sanity to find out. Because he knows that when the curtain goes up on the opening night performance of the new play ‘Our Lady of Pain’, based on the life of the murderous Countess Elizabeth Bathory, something horrific is going to happen and a bloodbath will ensue . . . The most unrelentingly dark of the many horror thrillers by the prolific John Blackburn (1923-1993), Our Lady of Pain (1974) is also one of his very best. This first-ever republication of the novel includes a new introduction by Greg Gbur. |
reviews
‘Even on the warmest night of the year, Mr Blackburn knows how to chill our marrow.’ – Scotsman
‘Blackburn quickly establishes the tone of urbane nastiness which pervades his new horror story . . . murders and much necrogenic excitement precede an extremely bloody climax.’ – Times Literary Supplement
‘A tour de force . . . the grimmest [of] Blackburn’s books.’ – Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
‘[A] stylish, genuinely chilling author . . . He can be depended upon to sustain swift, sure, exciting, and absorbing stories . . . undoubtedly one of England’s best practicing novelists in the tradition of the thriller novel.’ – St James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers
‘Blackburn quickly establishes the tone of urbane nastiness which pervades his new horror story . . . murders and much necrogenic excitement precede an extremely bloody climax.’ – Times Literary Supplement
‘A tour de force . . . the grimmest [of] Blackburn’s books.’ – Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural
‘[A] stylish, genuinely chilling author . . . He can be depended upon to sustain swift, sure, exciting, and absorbing stories . . . undoubtedly one of England’s best practicing novelists in the tradition of the thriller novel.’ – St James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
John Blackburn was born in 1923 in the village of Corbridge, England, the second son of a clergyman. He started attending Haileybury College near London in 1937, but his education was interrupted by the onset of World War II; the shadow of the war, and that of Nazi Germany, would later play a role in many of his works. He served as a radio officer during the war in the Mercantile Marine from 1942 to 1945, and resumed his education afterwards at Durham University, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1949. Blackburn taught for several years after that, first in London and then in Berlin, and married Joan Mary Clift in 1950. Returning to London in 1952, he took over the management of Red Lion Books.
It was there that Blackburn began writing, and the immediate success in 1958 of his first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, led him to take up a career as a writer full-time. He and his wife also maintained an antiquarian bookstore, a secondary career that would inform some of Blackburn’s later work. A prolific author, Blackburn would write nearly 30 novels between 1958 and 1985; most of these were horror and thrillers, but also included one historical novel set in Roman times, The Flame and the Wind (1967). He died in 1993.
It was there that Blackburn began writing, and the immediate success in 1958 of his first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, led him to take up a career as a writer full-time. He and his wife also maintained an antiquarian bookstore, a secondary career that would inform some of Blackburn’s later work. A prolific author, Blackburn would write nearly 30 novels between 1958 and 1985; most of these were horror and thrillers, but also included one historical novel set in Roman times, The Flame and the Wind (1967). He died in 1993.