The Book of the Mad

In her darkly dazzling finish to The Secret Books of Paradys, Tanith Lee tempts the reader with a tale of horror, lust and madness that leaves no perversity untouched, no taboo unbroken. This time, the seductive nightmare unfolds in three parallel versions of the City - Paradis, Paradys and Paradise. Connected by a labyrinth of ice whose dangers are amplified by the will and emotion of its lunatic travelers, these cities and their mad and near-mad denizens provide the stage for a drama of mythical proportions that none of the players can fully comprehend. Among the mad and the doomed are the murderous, remorseless siblings Felion and Smara; the violated woman-child Hilde; and Leocadia, the artist and visionary. Combining horror and hedonism, art and eroticism, Lee offers an aesthete's amoral view of beauty, pleasure and pain in her inimitable high style. This fourth book in the Paradys series is linked brilliantly to the previous three - The Book of the Damned, The Book of the Beast, and The Book of the Dead - not by plot but by its shared venue: the fantastic, Gothic, atmospheric and changeable city of Paradys.