Robert M. (shotokanchef) reviewed on 10/11/2009 + 813 more book reviews

This is vintage Dumas: conversation galore in rapid fire sentences. Hemingway, observe the master. This short novel is quite different from his normal genre. More in the vein of âThe Woman With the Red Necklace,â he pursues the continuance of life after death and the policy of capital punishment through a series of short tales of the macabre, set between the French revolutions of 1789 and 1830. It begins with the decapitation of a wife by her husband, of which he confesses to the mayor. Allegedly the severed head continued to be animated. Subsequently, the mayor hosts a luncheon for the witnesses to the investigation. Thus, each guest relates a gruesome tale from within his/her own experience. Something for everyone: the guillotine, the gibbet, the mass grave, the vampire; they are all here. One thousand and one ghosts? Not yet, it is only his beginning.

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