'Even on the warmest night of the year, Mr Blackburn knows how to chill our marrow.' - 'Blackburn quickly establishes the tone of urbane nastiness which pervades his new horror story . . . murders and much necrogenic excitement precede an extremely bloody climax.' - 'A tour de force . . . the grimmest [of] Blackburn's books.' - '[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.' - 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), (1974) is also one of his very best. This first-ever republication of the novel includes a new introduction by Greg Gbur.