D. M. Mitchell has been compared to Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Ruth Rendell, M. R. James, Linwood Barclay, Umberto Eco, the Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens and many others. His novel, The Soul Fixer, has been optioned for a Hollywood movie in conjunction with the famous director Dominic Sena (director of Gone in 60 Seconds, Swordfish etc). Discover for yourself why D. M. Mitchell is being regarded by some as one of the UK’s most original and exciting writers of psychological thrillers and supernatural fiction.
April 1918. David Latimer is a young man badly injured by the war, not only physically but mentally, too. Sent to Isherwood Sanatorium to recover, he meets Christopher Gilbourne, a fellow-sufferer of shell shock. They become firm friends until Christopher is discharged and is sent home to recover at his parents’ home.
But David Latimer is haunted by something far more sinister and terrifying than the war. He is haunted by a demon which comes every night to torment him. Is this demon real or a cruel symptom of his illness? He is contacted by a Doctor Harradine, who believes he can cure him of his affliction, the way he helped cure his friend Christopher Gilbourne, and so David Latimer finds himself bound for Somerset in England.
Here he meets Christopher’s parents at Gilbourne House, a crumbling old estate in the heart of rural Somerset. The Gilbournes – Sir Christopher and his wife Margaret – are in the throes of grief after losing their son, who returned to the Front and was killed, but they want to help his last good friend, David Latimer, and are paying for his treatment. Margaret is also dabbling in the occult, trying to contact her dead son, using a local young woman called Megan Attwell as a medium – a young woman who reputedly can speak to the dead.
David Latimer is soon attracted to Megan Attwell, and finds himself torn between the logic of Doctor Harradine and the occult beliefs of Megan. Moreover, he finds out she is desperately trying to clear the name of her husband-to-be William Pike, a man accused of murdering the Gilbournes’ estate manager, yet no one will believe the young man did not commit the crime.
Not only is David Latimer still suffering his demonic tormenting, but he is drawn inexorably into a labyrinthine world of the supernatural, secrets, lies and murder, and during his treatment his own dark and tragic past is dragged to the surface – a past that will have dire implications for all involved.
With his trademark detailed and fully believable characters, and intelligent plot twists and turns, D. M. Mitchell pens a brilliantly taut, multi-layered murder/mystery shot through with the supernatural and horror; a unique novel that will leave you gasping for breath from its quiet beginning all the way to its shock ending.