Cover art by Pedro Marques
BOOK DETAILS
Trade paper ISBN-13: 978-1960241351 List Price: $17.99 U.S. Pages: 140 Published: 2024 |
The Gaunt Woman (1962)
John Blackburn Book Description
It was only a scrawled note with a drawing of a stick figure and a cryptic reference to "the Gaunt Woman," but when Sir Martin Rolfe, a powerful British official, reads it, he nearly succumbs to a heart attack in a fit of terror. Peter Vanin, a Russian operative, thinks the secret of the Gaunt Woman could bring Britain to its knees and is determined to solve the riddle. But the truth is more terrible than anyone could imagine, a horrible tale of monstrosity, insanity, and a series of unthinkable murders ...
John Blackburn (1923-1993) was the author of 28 novels that blended the genres of mystery, thriller, horror, and science fiction in new and exciting ways, and The Gaunt Woman (1962) is one of his most gripping tales, a Cold War-era story that blends espionage and horror and unusually features a sympathetic Soviet as its protagonist. |
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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.