Barnabas Quentin & the Scorpio Curse :Da

Dark Shadows #23

by Marilyn Ross

Is the sign of Scorpio the mark of death?Terror reigns at Collinwood when several patients at a nearby psychiatric clinic at which Barnabas Collins is a patient are stabbed to death. Each victim's forehead is marked with a scorpion, the zodiacal symbol of death.Then Diana Collins, another relative of the Collins family who is undergoing psychiatric treatment at the hospital, finds a bloody knife in her room. Diana, whose astrological sign is Scorpio, is afraid that she may have committed the murders during one of her blackouts. The fear that she is losing her mind is compounded when no one will believe she has seen a strange, wolf-like creature prowling the grounds.The only person who will listen to her story is Barnabas. But how can he help her when he too has become a suspect?

Genres: Horror, Gothic, Vampires, Fantasy

Paperback

First published November 15, 1970

About the author

William Edward Daniel Ross, W. E. Daniel "Dan" Ross (born 1912) is a bestselling Canadian novelist from Saint John, New Brunswick who wrote over 300 books in a variety of genres and under a variety of mostly female pseudonyms such as Laura Frances Brooks, Lydia Colby, Rose Dana, Jan Daniels, Olin Ross, Diane Randall, Clarissa Ross, Leslie Ames, Ruth Dorset, Ann Gilmer, Jane Rossiter, Dan Ross, Dana Ross, Marilyn Ross, Dan Roberts, and W.E.D. Ross. As Marilyn Ross he wrote popular Gothic fiction including a series of novels about the vampire Barnabas Collins based on the American TV series Dark Shadows (1966-71).

Reviews

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 3 out of 5]

After my last reading experience for one of the Dark Shadow novels (there’s a review here on Goodreads), Barnabas, Quentin and the Scorpio Curse somewhat redeemed it. As anyone familiar with the series knows, it’s formulaic and predictable. Unexplained inconsistencies occur between the novels and sometimes within. The cover photos have nothing to do with the story. Still, I get a cozy feeling when I’m enveloped in the Dark Shadows world. So I keep coming back. This time Barnabas isn’t a vampire. There were spells when the vampire curse was cured, only to come back.

This story takes place in an asylum next to Collinwood. The idea of making all the characters in a sense “unreliable” witnesses is used to great effect. It is a little difficult to accept that Barnabas wouldn’t recognize his cousin Quentin (still a werewolf), even if in disguise. He does eventually figure it out and save the girl who, according to formula, falls in love with him. The story is gothic and moody and not particularly well written.

As I mention in my blog post (Sects and Violence in the Ancient World) about this one, mental health is a sensitive issue. We’re only just starting to get over the stigma that’s always been attached to the suffering of not being “normal”—whatever that is. In the 1970s things were quite different. “Insane asylums” were still acceptable and largely government funded. Here there are clearly characters having trouble coping with reality (whatever that is, also). Barnabas is less vampire than detective, but at some level this story actually works.

[WhatShouldIRead · Rating 1 out of 5]

Finally finished with this insipid book. I do respect the author, having turned out 30-something in the Dark Shadows series so not all of his stories can be winners. But this one was just terrible.

Diana - going to a asylum for blackouts - brings her sister for moral support. However, each and every time they talk the sister drills into Diana's head how sick she is, how she is a murderer (apparently she stabbed her ex-boyfriend) and how worthless she is. Some moral support.

She meets her distant cousin, Barnabas, there. She immediately (of course) is attracted to him (and, btw, this must be the part in the series where Barnabas is 'cured' of the vampire curse and is able to walk in daylight) and every time something weird/bad happens she seeks out Barnabas to talk about it.

She is quite the doormat of a character.

Barnabas is mainly a sounding board and Quentin does make more of an appearance than the last book.

But even the circumstances in the story and the atmosphere couldn't save this book for me. Give this one a pass.

[Richard Tolleson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a strange one. It's almost as if ol' "Marilyn" Ross had a manuscript lying around, and decided to shoehorn the Dark Shadows characters into it. Barnabas is presented to us as a cured vampire, but it's not explained how that happened. He's a patient at a psychiatric hospital near Collinwood, where his distant cousin Diana comes for treatment. Barnabas isn't given much to do in this book--he's more of an observer than an actual participant in the action--but the one thing he does a lot of is drive. I guess being undead since 1795 made him eager to get behind the wheel. A couple of other Collins family members are seen early in the book, but don't really have anything to do with the plot. For the umpteenth time we have the device of Quentin being in disguise--this time as a doctor at the hospital--and no one seems to be able to figure out who he is. Then when he's found out, he disappears--but not before the local constabulary try to gun him down. Even by DS book standards, there's a pretty high body count in this one, and by the time you get a little more than halfway through, you should be able to figure out who the killer is. One more note about Barnabas--there's a very weird scene at the end where he's back in his coffin, apparently for the sole purpose of delivering a life lesson to Diana. I have no doubt that in the next book, everything will be reset at Collinwood, and Barnabas will be back to being a reluctant vampire. To avoid severe cognitive dissonance, consider this one Parallel Time.

[James Crawford · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book that, at least in my opinion, doesn't really fit in with the other Barnabas books in this series. Barnabas is no longer a vampire yet there's no real explanation for what happened. Further, he's in a mental institution, having problems dealing with being normal and not being a vampire any more. I don't really see where he would have major problems with this.

He was normal before he became a vampire, he's highly intelligent and has had a lot of interactions with other people as any normal person would. I actually would see him as overjoyed that the curse was gone.

In this story a woman, Diana Collins, ends up in the same facility suffering from blackouts. Carol is her younger sister and is there to support her. One of the doctors that works there was worked at a concentration camp during the war so that's not saying much for the facility. There's one doctor that is very cruel, especially to her. There's various murders and Diana's sister tries to blame her for them. Quentin is involved (obvious from the title). Barnabas doesn't do a lot early in the book but becomes more active later.

It feels to me that this book is stretching things, trying to force-fit Diana's story into a Dark Shadows format when it doesn't really require Barnabas or Quentin as characters. I think this is the weakest of lal the Dark Shadows paperbacks I've read so far.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

These novels are always their own separate entity,from the Soap Opera on which they are based. But that never stops me from enjoying them.
Diana Collins, a distant cousin, returns to Collionwood, to check into a nearby psychiatric hospital. She's been having blackouts,and may have stabbed her former fiancee during one. Hey sister Carol comes with her, supposedly for support.
Once there she meets distant cousin Barnabas, who is checked in for his own problems.
Strange things begin to happen. A new bald doctor is at the hospital, and a phantom lady has been appearing,as had a supposed werewolf.
Other than Barnabas, only
Elizabeth from the Soap Opera is in the story...yes, Quentin is around, but as usual in most of these novels so far, he's disguised through much of the story. The Quentin in these novels is hardly ever like the one from the Soap...
As always I love the atmosphere.in these books. You can feel the fog sweep over you.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

After stating in my last review how unpredictable the endings were in this series, this turns out to the most predictable one yet. I saw this one coming a mile away, and the usual twist wasn't there. That being said, it wasn't bad, but it was a bit of the "same old, same old." Quentin Collins is always in disguise for some reason, and he really felt shoehorned into this story. Really, the whole premise was odd. Baranabas is under care as a mental patient, and the reason given for it didn't really click. It also seemed like maybe he wasn't a vampire in this one? It was a little muddy.

As usual, the beautiful MC falls for Barnabas but, spoiler alert, alas, it's not meant to be!

Overall not bad, but at this point things are getting a little stale. Maybe the series can be redeemed in the next few volumes.

[Larry Yonce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Distant cousins Barnabas (a Leo) and Diana (a Scorpio) are taking the psychiatric cure for their problems at nearby Turnbridge House. Diana's sister Carol is accompanying her. Staff at Turnbridge include Dr. Meyer, Dr. Decker, and Dr. Ayler. Fellow patients are model Dawn Walsh, housewife Hope Fenway, playwright Brian Dale, and architect Paul Miles. Not long after Diana's arrival, a string of murders and attempted murders begin all pointing to Diana as the culprit; but Barnabas fights to prove otherwise. The werewolf Quentin Collins is also back in Collinsport. A master of disguise, Quentin could be hiding in plain sight. Entertaining enough entry in the series, though both Quentin's secret identity and the identity of the killer are fairly obvious early on.

[Mark Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dan Ross mixes it up a bit. Barnabas is, apparently, no longer a vampire. He tells the protagonist he’d slept in a coffin in the basement of the Old House because he had been convinced the curse put upon “the first Barnabas” had been passed down to him. He’s in a mental hospital to get cured. (An interesting twist.) The book as a whole, like the previous one, is not as unintentionally funny as the early books are. Quentin appears in disguise again, for no good reason. When he turns into a werewolf he’s “yellow grey.” Can’t quite picture that. In all, not a terrible book, but the earlier ones I enjoyed much more.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was different from the last 10 books but didn't really go into any details on why. Wierd

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book interested me as a kid, largely because of its tie-in to astrology. Heroine Diana Collins is a mental patient at Turnbridge House---Harriet Turnbridge's home from a previous novel, now converted into a hospital!---where she's trying to recover from frightening blackouts. Diana, herself a Scorpio, finds comfort in studying the zodiac signs, though her sister Carol ridicules her for this "obsession." And when fellow patients begin to die mysteriously, each one marked with the Scorpio emblem, Diana becomes the most logical suspect...

It's fun to have a mentally ill patient as our heroine. Diana "sees things," REAL things such as the werewolf of Collinwood, and thinks that she's hallucinating. In actual fact she's far, far saner than her sister Carol, who turns out to be a full-fledged psychotic. The story unfolds as a classic whodunit. The hospital functions as your typical "dark old house" where the bodies just keep piling up. Barnabas Collins, himself an inmate there, believes Diana innocent and promises to help find the real killer. Diana falls for him, of course. Amusingly, she assumes his "vampirism" to be just a psychological delusion, nothing more. And Barnabas never does set her straight on that, although at one point he DOES show her his empty coffin...