The Fatal Flower

by Lynn Benedict

As the train that was bringing her to a reunion with her famous actress mother pulled into the station, Alice Whelan observed a strange incident from her window. She saw a young girl running across a field, pursued by a uniformed chauffeur who soon overtook her and forced her into a waiting limousine. Later Alice recognized both the car and its driver on the grounds of her stepfather's estate. But everyone who listened to Alice's story vigorously denied the girl's existence. Convinced that they were all lying, Alice set out to find the pretty captive herself, little knowing that her search would unlock a whole household of horrors!

Genres: Gothic, Fiction, Horror

190 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1973

About the author

Pseudonym for Victor J. Banis. Also wrote under the name Jan Alexander.

Reviews

[Sarah Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm trying to think of a way to summarize this book without spoiling everything.

*thinks*
*makes a cup of tea*
*thinks again*

Ah, screw it.

So there's this girl named Alice. She's on a train to visit her long-lost mother. From the window she sees a girl being kidnapped & stuffed into a limo. Nobody believes her story when she arrives...but then she sees the limo & driver at her mother's house. Being a nosy little thing, Alice begins to search the crumbling old mansion & finds a teenage girl named Sarah who is locked in an old solarium with glass brick walls.

From there, the story makes an abrupt turn into crazyville.

Full disclosure: I've read many Benedict/Alexander/Banis gothics & enjoyed all of them. He's definitely one of my favorite pulp authors. But I have admit this isn't his best -- the story is too bizarre, & the writing isn't as good as other examples. It's not terrible (even with the hiccups, I've read much worse), but it lacks the silky, semi-ethereal flow I've come to expect from his gothics.

As for this one...oh my.

You must understand that I've yet to read a Banis gothic that obeys the laws of normality. He definitely thought outside the box for his trashy little tomes, & that's a good thing. But The Fatal Flower manages to stretch even MY forgiving taste for goffick oddity. Not only do we have a conservatory full of carnivorous plants (which is fabulously macabre), but these particular plants eat people, thanks to a windbag scientist who somehow interbred the little monsters into a beautiful, deadly mass. Now these Frankenstein plants have adopted a little girl who fell into their clutches, injecting her with their venom. And not only have they infused her with gooey poisonous blood, but they've given her the ability to suck lifeforces at will. (The plants also cuddle her when she touches them & recognize her as their daughter, because why not?) As if that wasn't wonky enough, there's a mystery potion that was created to either cure or infect other people with the plants' immortality & life-sucking abilities...but whatever. By then I was neck-deep in WTF & didn't pause to question that final nail in the Coffin-o-Coherency.

Quite honestly, the details defy logical plotting. Don't get me wrong; I was mesmerized, & it stuck in my mind like Gorilla Glue. If nothing else it's an exercise in sheer WTFery, which may entice a certain breed of reader. (You know who you are.) But for most people, I wouldn't recommend it.

[Hope · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like the story took a really long time to get through. The way that Alice kept saying what she saw and trying to convince the others was just annoying tbh. They were all just gaslighting her and it caused her to get herself into the weird plant stuff. So now she’s a plant creature with her “boyfriend” who she wasn’t really interested in (off and on).

[CarrotCakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's everything I wanted it to be - bizarre, smart, disturbing, curious, fluid writing, and a little bit magical. It's like a fever dream.