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Molly Fountain #2
The Satanist
For years Colonel Verney had suspected a link between devil-worship and the subversive influence of Soviet Russia. When they found Teddy Morden's crucified body, he knew his grimmest fears were justified and that world peace was also endangered.Barney Sullivan is a secret agent who, horrified by the death of one of his colleagues whose body was rendered unrecognisable, investigates Communist activities which threaten the security of the West. Mary Morden has a past which enables her to put moral scruples aside – as she knows she must if she is to triumph over evil and bring the Devil worshipers to justice.
578 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1960
33 people are currently reading
493 people want to read
About the author
Dennis Wheatley
381 books248 followersDennis Yates Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) [Born: Dennis Yeats Wheatley] was an English author. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors in the 1950s and 1960s.
His first book, Three Inquisitive People, was not immediately published; but his first published novel, The Forbidden Territory, was an immediate success when published in 1933, being reprinted seven times in seven weeks.
He wrote adventure stories, with many books in a series of linked works. His plots covered the French Revolution (Roger Brook Series), Satanism (Duc de Richleau), World War II (Gregory Sallust) and espionage (Julian Day).
In the thirties, he conceived a series of whodunit mysteries, presented as case files, with testimonies, letters, pieces of evidence such as hairs or pills. The reader had to go through the evidence to solve the mystery before unsealing the last pages of the file, which gave the answer. Four of these 'Crime Dossiers' were published: Murder Off Miami, Who Killed Robert Prentice, The Malinsay Massacre, and Herewith The Clues.
In the 1960s his publishers were selling a million copies of his books per year. A small number of his books were made into films by Hammer, of which the best known is The Devil Rides Out (book 1934, film 1968). His writing is very descriptive and in many works he manages to introduce his characters into real events while meeting real people. For example, in the Roger Brook series the main character involves himself with Napoleon, and Joséphine whilst being a spy for the Prime Minister William Pitt. Similarly, in the Gregory Sallust series, Sallust shares an evening meal with Hermann Göring.
He also wrote non-fiction works, including accounts of the Russian Revolution and King Charles II, and his autobiography. He was considered an authority on the supernatural, satanism, the practice of exorcism, and black magic, to all of which he was hostile. During his study of the paranormal, though, he joined the Ghost Club.
From 1974 through 1977 he edited a series of 45 paperback reprints for the British publisher Sphere under the heading "The Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult", selecting the titles and writing short introductions for each book. This series included both occult-themed novels by the likes of Bram Stoker and Aleister Crowley and non-fiction works on magic, occultism, and divination by authors such as the Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, the historian Maurice Magre, the magician Isaac Bonewits, and the palm-reader Cheiro.
Two weeks before his death in November 1977, Wheatley received conditional absolution from his old friend Cyril ‘Bobby’ Eastaugh, the Bishop of Peterborough.
His estate library was sold in a catalogue sale by Basil Blackwell's in the 1970s, indicating a thoroughly well-read individual with wide-ranging interests particularly in historical fiction and Europe. His influence has declined, partly due to difficulties in reprinting his works owing to copyright problems.
Fifty-two of Wheatley's novels were published posthumously in a set by Heron Books UK. More recently, in April 2008 Dennis Wheatley's literary estate was acquired by media company Chorion.
He invented a number of board games including Invasion.
-Wikipedia
His first book, Three Inquisitive People, was not immediately published; but his first published novel, The Forbidden Territory, was an immediate success when published in 1933, being reprinted seven times in seven weeks.
He wrote adventure stories, with many books in a series of linked works. His plots covered the French Revolution (Roger Brook Series), Satanism (Duc de Richleau), World War II (Gregory Sallust) and espionage (Julian Day).
In the thirties, he conceived a series of whodunit mysteries, presented as case files, with testimonies, letters, pieces of evidence such as hairs or pills. The reader had to go through the evidence to solve the mystery before unsealing the last pages of the file, which gave the answer. Four of these 'Crime Dossiers' were published: Murder Off Miami, Who Killed Robert Prentice, The Malinsay Massacre, and Herewith The Clues.
In the 1960s his publishers were selling a million copies of his books per year. A small number of his books were made into films by Hammer, of which the best known is The Devil Rides Out (book 1934, film 1968). His writing is very descriptive and in many works he manages to introduce his characters into real events while meeting real people. For example, in the Roger Brook series the main character involves himself with Napoleon, and Joséphine whilst being a spy for the Prime Minister William Pitt. Similarly, in the Gregory Sallust series, Sallust shares an evening meal with Hermann Göring.
He also wrote non-fiction works, including accounts of the Russian Revolution and King Charles II, and his autobiography. He was considered an authority on the supernatural, satanism, the practice of exorcism, and black magic, to all of which he was hostile. During his study of the paranormal, though, he joined the Ghost Club.
From 1974 through 1977 he edited a series of 45 paperback reprints for the British publisher Sphere under the heading "The Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult", selecting the titles and writing short introductions for each book. This series included both occult-themed novels by the likes of Bram Stoker and Aleister Crowley and non-fiction works on magic, occultism, and divination by authors such as the Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, the historian Maurice Magre, the magician Isaac Bonewits, and the palm-reader Cheiro.
Two weeks before his death in November 1977, Wheatley received conditional absolution from his old friend Cyril ‘Bobby’ Eastaugh, the Bishop of Peterborough.
His estate library was sold in a catalogue sale by Basil Blackwell's in the 1970s, indicating a thoroughly well-read individual with wide-ranging interests particularly in historical fiction and Europe. His influence has declined, partly due to difficulties in reprinting his works owing to copyright problems.
Fifty-two of Wheatley's novels were published posthumously in a set by Heron Books UK. More recently, in April 2008 Dennis Wheatley's literary estate was acquired by media company Chorion.
He invented a number of board games including Invasion.
-Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
June 6, 2020
One star rounded up from minus a billion. This book is so bad it should never have been written, or published, or read by anyone ever. It should be pulped and used to mulch the roots of a stinking corpse lily. It should be strapped to Fu Manchu's dildo, lit on fire and catapulted into outer space. It should be alchemically transmuted into a homunculus, tarred and feathered, hung from the nearest lamp post, and beaten about the body with a rolled up, excrement-smeared copy of the Baedecker Guide to Switzerland. It should be distilled into a liqueur and administered as an enema to an angry iguanodon. I did not enjoy this book.
January 2, 2022
It's difficult even to know where to start with this one ... (and, for what it's worth, I should say upfront that I read /and enjoyed/ The Devil Rides Out).
The Satanist was Wheatley's last big success, and by this point his publisher wasn't bothering him with interruptions like editors to help shape the text.
It shows.
The book is a formless mess. There seemed possibly to be a viable occult thriller plot in there somewhere, but it's stretched and dissipated through a couple of other plot strands so far that it's barely discernible. And those other plot strands really bring out the most despicable and contemptible aspects of Wheatley.
One gives full play to an expression of his rightwing politics that brings out just how incomprehensibly ill-informed he was. I'm well enough used to the rightward movement of many pulp writers to live with the frothing anti-communist diatribes, but what marks Wheatley out is that he presents himself as being an informed insider on such matters. This only serves to underscore all the more sharply that his political analyses and reflections MAKE NO SENSE and are based on contorted gibberish. (That's not a comment about their content, even: Sax Rohmer comes up with similarly nonsensical political prognostications, but mainly because he doesn't seem actually interested in them - they're wrinkles in a broader plot - whereas Wheatley has that messianic tone of someone who WILL save western civilisation, /his way/, whatever you think about that ...)
The other is an equally reactionary account of romance and sexual relations. I find myself almost at a loss for words on this one: at one level it's easy enough (basically, women are inferior) but it's all the more repugnant because framed through a backstory about prostitution. I feel grubby even trying to rethink this long enough to comment.
Wheatley is so full of his own authority, however, that he allows himself to wander backwards and forwards (mostly backwards) through these ruminations at random, but usually just when it prevents any tension developing or any unfolding of the plot.
His fundamental inability to write coherently, much less succinctly, rather cruelly reveals this 'authority' to be a regurgitation of other people's explanations rather than any assimilation by the author of ideas, or even facts. (One supposedly tense chase sequence is slowed down hilariously by local details evidently taken from a tourist guidebook). The more authoritative his tone, the less you feel he actually knows, including on the occult that is (allegedly) the book's big draw.
Again, I am well used to the casual racism of the potboiler, but Rohmer again provides a useful comparison. Rohmer didn't actually know anything about China or 'Chinamen' but chose them as his villains because they were just suitably and representatively Foreign and Alien. Wheatley's is the more repugnant view that anything Not-White (just like Not-Male and Not-Middle-Class-Or-Higher) is wrong. It's nasty.
Pluses: in his inability to write he has an apparent obsession with comparing facial features to sea-fauna (CB has 'prawn-like' eyebrows) that usually raises some sort of laugh, although it also has revoltingly racist aspects. That won't get you through 438 pages though.
The Satanist was Wheatley's last big success, and by this point his publisher wasn't bothering him with interruptions like editors to help shape the text.
It shows.
The book is a formless mess. There seemed possibly to be a viable occult thriller plot in there somewhere, but it's stretched and dissipated through a couple of other plot strands so far that it's barely discernible. And those other plot strands really bring out the most despicable and contemptible aspects of Wheatley.
One gives full play to an expression of his rightwing politics that brings out just how incomprehensibly ill-informed he was. I'm well enough used to the rightward movement of many pulp writers to live with the frothing anti-communist diatribes, but what marks Wheatley out is that he presents himself as being an informed insider on such matters. This only serves to underscore all the more sharply that his political analyses and reflections MAKE NO SENSE and are based on contorted gibberish. (That's not a comment about their content, even: Sax Rohmer comes up with similarly nonsensical political prognostications, but mainly because he doesn't seem actually interested in them - they're wrinkles in a broader plot - whereas Wheatley has that messianic tone of someone who WILL save western civilisation, /his way/, whatever you think about that ...)
The other is an equally reactionary account of romance and sexual relations. I find myself almost at a loss for words on this one: at one level it's easy enough (basically, women are inferior) but it's all the more repugnant because framed through a backstory about prostitution. I feel grubby even trying to rethink this long enough to comment.
Wheatley is so full of his own authority, however, that he allows himself to wander backwards and forwards (mostly backwards) through these ruminations at random, but usually just when it prevents any tension developing or any unfolding of the plot.
His fundamental inability to write coherently, much less succinctly, rather cruelly reveals this 'authority' to be a regurgitation of other people's explanations rather than any assimilation by the author of ideas, or even facts. (One supposedly tense chase sequence is slowed down hilariously by local details evidently taken from a tourist guidebook). The more authoritative his tone, the less you feel he actually knows, including on the occult that is (allegedly) the book's big draw.
Again, I am well used to the casual racism of the potboiler, but Rohmer again provides a useful comparison. Rohmer didn't actually know anything about China or 'Chinamen' but chose them as his villains because they were just suitably and representatively Foreign and Alien. Wheatley's is the more repugnant view that anything Not-White (just like Not-Male and Not-Middle-Class-Or-Higher) is wrong. It's nasty.
Pluses: in his inability to write he has an apparent obsession with comparing facial features to sea-fauna (CB has 'prawn-like' eyebrows) that usually raises some sort of laugh, although it also has revoltingly racist aspects. That won't get you through 438 pages though.
July 21, 2015
When I read this I was about 12 and I thought wow nudity, hints of sex.
NOW TO THE MODERN DAY
It is a steaming pile of SHIT. Sorry, really bland and uninteresting. He has fallen out of favour over the years and with good reason. This book is best described thus: Give a dog a piece of toffee and watch it chew and chew and chew and flop and lick and paw his mouth and cheeeeeeew.
ANTI FEMALE AND POLITICAL
This is mostly a springboard for personal political beliefs, you can tell that it is not a story as such, you can feel the anger.
The characters are thick and apparantly all women are just whores.
Use this poorly worded book as an example of atrocious writing.
NOW TO THE MODERN DAY
It is a steaming pile of SHIT. Sorry, really bland and uninteresting. He has fallen out of favour over the years and with good reason. This book is best described thus: Give a dog a piece of toffee and watch it chew and chew and chew and flop and lick and paw his mouth and cheeeeeeew.
ANTI FEMALE AND POLITICAL
This is mostly a springboard for personal political beliefs, you can tell that it is not a story as such, you can feel the anger.
The characters are thick and apparantly all women are just whores.
Use this poorly worded book as an example of atrocious writing.
July 2, 2021
A really really fantastic an exciting read.
This book represents almost the perfect mix between 'horror' and 'thriller' with genuinely exciting results.
As with most of Wheatleys books, you have to deal with some very outdated aspects. It is very sexist and incredibly racist. Before attempting this book it is important that the reader considers if this is something that they are able to look past.
Aside from his, it is easy to read and a book that we very hard to put down.
This book represents almost the perfect mix between 'horror' and 'thriller' with genuinely exciting results.
As with most of Wheatleys books, you have to deal with some very outdated aspects. It is very sexist and incredibly racist. Before attempting this book it is important that the reader considers if this is something that they are able to look past.
Aside from his, it is easy to read and a book that we very hard to put down.
February 6, 2017
An older review, but the story and premise is still fresh enough to share my thoughts on the book.
From roughly the same era as Ian Fleming, espionage/thriller writer, Dennis Wheatley was, in my opinion, the less well known but more exciting writer.
I was drawn to the story for one, it's bold title, something that would have probably been barred from shops in those days as a guide to satanism.
A well crafted story, which scares, excites and tickles anyone with a curiosity for black magic, demons and the occult. Mixed with anti-communist spy storylines, then you have an interesting read from start to finish.
From roughly the same era as Ian Fleming, espionage/thriller writer, Dennis Wheatley was, in my opinion, the less well known but more exciting writer.
I was drawn to the story for one, it's bold title, something that would have probably been barred from shops in those days as a guide to satanism.
A well crafted story, which scares, excites and tickles anyone with a curiosity for black magic, demons and the occult. Mixed with anti-communist spy storylines, then you have an interesting read from start to finish.
August 5, 2015
A rivetting, old-style thriller with plenty of action and intrigue and all the other good things, and an innovative conflation of Satanism and Communism as was the vogue in those high days of the Cold War - not to mention a bit of what will leave the politically correct army gnashing their teeth.... the ending was a bit too hurried, I feel, and to my regret, the lovely Molly Fountain is only mentioned and doesn't appear. Also sad that this was the second and last appearance of Conky Bill...
July 15, 2013
I've read several volumes from the Dennis Wheately Library of the Occult series and seen the movie The Devil Rides Out. This is the first novel by Wheatley I've read, and all I can say is: meh.
As a writer, he is passable if nondescript. The plot is needlessly complicated by having to sustain two parallel story lines, one of which is far less interesting than the other. The amount of racism and sexism on display here would make Lovecraft, Stoker and Simmons chortle in delight and raise a toast to Wheatley. Look, I've read good novels from this era, novels that bear the marks of their author's prejudices and his era - chiefly novels by the wonderful John Buchan - and I can say that Wheatley is not even close to being in the same league as a writer or as a thinker.
Perhaps the only redeeming factor is the detailed, lurid description of satanist rituals. Wheatley had read deep of occult lore and brings a great deal of convincing and creepy nuance to these scenes.
As a writer, he is passable if nondescript. The plot is needlessly complicated by having to sustain two parallel story lines, one of which is far less interesting than the other. The amount of racism and sexism on display here would make Lovecraft, Stoker and Simmons chortle in delight and raise a toast to Wheatley. Look, I've read good novels from this era, novels that bear the marks of their author's prejudices and his era - chiefly novels by the wonderful John Buchan - and I can say that Wheatley is not even close to being in the same league as a writer or as a thinker.
Perhaps the only redeeming factor is the detailed, lurid description of satanist rituals. Wheatley had read deep of occult lore and brings a great deal of convincing and creepy nuance to these scenes.
November 16, 2012
I was quite disappointed with this book. I'd read The Devil rides out and LOVED it and also enjoyed To the Devil a daughter. This book had some of the same characters as To the Devil a daughter but it just seemed far too absurd. It started with a rather lengthy discussion about how Communism was infiltrating the trade unions and ruining British industry, and then the main character was introduced as a noble playboy character (reformed) and there was a discussion about how the couple from the last book lived apart all but 3 months of the year to save themselves money on taxes. It just was rather clear that the author's views (or at least the character's views) were a world away from mine. The Communist/satanist plot seemed quite a bit sillier than the others. Combining the "modern" spy thriller/nuclear espionage with the occult just seemed like a really bad crossover and I wasn't able to take either seriously. The satanists themselves didn't seem to have nearly as much power or carry as much threat as they did in the Devil Rides Out. Likewise the "sabbat" seemed rather lame, the devil himself did not appear. The plot built and built but then the climax happened off camera and it felt very strangely rushed and unresolved at the end. The main focus shifting away from nuclear Armageddon to the romance. The best thing about the book was the female lead, it was interesting to see her rather mixed up attitudes towards life and sex. She decided to infiltrate the satanists after they killed her husband for being a spy. She spent a great deal of time agonizing over the sex aspect of becoming a satanist and it wasn't until 3/4s of the way through that she realised her husband would also have participated in their orgies. Still she was always very brave and had mostly good common sense. There were an awful lot of racist overtones within the book however. From the despicable Indian to the Native American who learned satanism as part of his "native beliefs". Where it did actually say that because he grew up on the reservation he had been taught no morals and only to worship Satan(!). I'm less sure now if I want to read Wheatley's other occult novels. I suspect if I see anymore in charity shops going cheap I'll pick them up but I don't think I'll be actively looking for them.
June 9, 2018
What can I say? I thought the Devil Rides Out always had some quaint old-world charm. But then I went and bought the other Black Magic novels and every one has been more painful to read than the last. I was expecting the usual racism, sexism, and commie-baiting, but a novel that starts with a five-page rant against trade unions in the UK, which would make any Daily Mail editor proud, was a bit too much even by my much lowered standards. The rest is, simply, boring. Had this been a 200-page book, it might have been entertaining at least. Now it took me 3 months to finish. Apparently Wheatley's publisher stopped using editors at some point, thinking that whatever garbage he produces, it will sell. Ah well... I only wish I could get back the time I wasted on this book.
April 10, 2014
Awful beyond belief. It reads like the mind of Nigel Farrage.
Read
January 3, 2024when i first thought this might actually be terrible i had an idea of a review that went something like "who would have thought a book where a communist nazi satanist tries to end the world would be bad?" but the more i think about it, the more i already knew that. you already knew that. of course it's bad, it's racist and sexist and staggeringly uninteresting because the kind of person who is "afraid" (in the interest of making money from that fear) that the communist nazi satanists are trying to end the world is a racist, a sexist, and staggeringly uninteresting. it's miserable, there's no joy, there's nothing but indifference and half-hearted attempts to mention things that might be satanic probably. it's not even crazy and obsessive and fun because the person who wrote it didn't actually care about any of these things, he was utterly indifferent to the idea of the communist nazi satanists trying to end the world because whether the world ended or not, he, in his conception of that apocalypse, as in his conception of any and all conceivable-to-him worlds, would be basically fine
April 6, 2015
The Satinist
This book was excellent all the way through. Heatley held your attention with a taunt story line of action and magic. The final ten pages were one thrill after another. Well done!
This book was excellent all the way through. Heatley held your attention with a taunt story line of action and magic. The final ten pages were one thrill after another. Well done!
August 20, 2008
Yet another of the forbidden books banished to the basement. Two words to describe this one: Stunning Stupidity.
January 18, 2011
I bought this at an op shop and I remember it taking me a while to read. It just did not grab me. It read like a bad episode of Midsummer Murders.
June 23, 2013
9/10 for entertainment, 0/10 for politics. No suprises there obviously
April 22, 2015
Of its time.
April 15, 2021
This was my first Wheatley and three things stood out…
The incredible amount of exposition in the opening chapters.
The incredible amount of drinking.
The racism.
That said, it would be remiss of me if I failed to state right from the off that Dennis Wheatley really does know how to write an exciting book. But before I get stuck into that, this review includes spoilers so if you don’t want to have any surprises ruined, you’d better stop reading.
What begins as two apparently unrelated plots – one involving Russian rabble-rousers in the trade union movement and the other a young lady investigating the death of her husband – soon converge to become something akin to a James Bond novel, with an evil genius trying to start WWIII by launching a stolen nuclear warhead at Moscow from his mountain lair.
It’s all genuinely thrilling and Wheatley wrings every last ounce of tension out of various imaginative set-pieces that take our heroes from the seedy streets of London to the snowy heights of the Swiss Alps.
Mary Morden’s husband was a secret agent who was murdered while attempting to infiltrate a Satanic coven somewhere in the capital. She decides that she should be the one to gather the evidence to convict his killers, so she disguises herself and tries to worm her way into the coven via a sleazy Indian chap called Ratnadatta.
Meanwhile, a fine, upstanding chap called Colonel Verney suspects a connection between the Commies and the Satanists and sends agent Barney Sullivan in to check it out. However, the defence of the realm is threatened when a megalomaniac with supernatural powers steals a plane-load of experimental rocket fuel for his own nefarious purposes.
The aforementioned exposition that occurs in the opening chapters of the book, far from holding things up, actually serves to set the scene nicely. It’s all too common these days for novels to begin by dropping the reader into the middle of the already unfolding action, so it was nice to read something that starts with a slow burn. However, not even this amount of exposition could prepare me for the absolutely astounding amount of drinking that Verney and Sullivan indulge in during the course of their adventure.
No national crisis, it seems, is too severe to prevent a quick visit to the nearest “club” for a glass of port, sherry or gin. I’m not kidding, they’re knocking this stuff back every couple of pages. After a few chapters I could only envisage them as two shambling red-faced drunkards, slurring their way from one plot point to the next, urinating themselves as they go.
And then there’s the racism. I can already hear people saying, “Ah yes, but The Satanist was published in 1960. It’s just of it’s time, that’s all.”
Yes, well…there’s being “of it’s time” and then there’s the n-word. Know what I mean? Also, as she infiltrates deeper into the Satanic coven, Mary learns that she might be expected to have sex with some of the members. She is horrified to discover that this may include one or more of the “negroes”. This is something that no decent, self-respecting white girl would ever consider, apparently.
So yes, that certainly left a sour taste.
The book concludes with Mary getting what every young lady truly desires, a marriage proposal. And that’s not all, because her suitor (ie Barney) also has a title (Lord) which means that she will too (Lady). It’s all so terribly terribly British, isn’t it?
The incredible amount of exposition in the opening chapters.
The incredible amount of drinking.
The racism.
That said, it would be remiss of me if I failed to state right from the off that Dennis Wheatley really does know how to write an exciting book. But before I get stuck into that, this review includes spoilers so if you don’t want to have any surprises ruined, you’d better stop reading.
What begins as two apparently unrelated plots – one involving Russian rabble-rousers in the trade union movement and the other a young lady investigating the death of her husband – soon converge to become something akin to a James Bond novel, with an evil genius trying to start WWIII by launching a stolen nuclear warhead at Moscow from his mountain lair.
It’s all genuinely thrilling and Wheatley wrings every last ounce of tension out of various imaginative set-pieces that take our heroes from the seedy streets of London to the snowy heights of the Swiss Alps.
Mary Morden’s husband was a secret agent who was murdered while attempting to infiltrate a Satanic coven somewhere in the capital. She decides that she should be the one to gather the evidence to convict his killers, so she disguises herself and tries to worm her way into the coven via a sleazy Indian chap called Ratnadatta.
Meanwhile, a fine, upstanding chap called Colonel Verney suspects a connection between the Commies and the Satanists and sends agent Barney Sullivan in to check it out. However, the defence of the realm is threatened when a megalomaniac with supernatural powers steals a plane-load of experimental rocket fuel for his own nefarious purposes.
The aforementioned exposition that occurs in the opening chapters of the book, far from holding things up, actually serves to set the scene nicely. It’s all too common these days for novels to begin by dropping the reader into the middle of the already unfolding action, so it was nice to read something that starts with a slow burn. However, not even this amount of exposition could prepare me for the absolutely astounding amount of drinking that Verney and Sullivan indulge in during the course of their adventure.
No national crisis, it seems, is too severe to prevent a quick visit to the nearest “club” for a glass of port, sherry or gin. I’m not kidding, they’re knocking this stuff back every couple of pages. After a few chapters I could only envisage them as two shambling red-faced drunkards, slurring their way from one plot point to the next, urinating themselves as they go.
And then there’s the racism. I can already hear people saying, “Ah yes, but The Satanist was published in 1960. It’s just of it’s time, that’s all.”
Yes, well…there’s being “of it’s time” and then there’s the n-word. Know what I mean? Also, as she infiltrates deeper into the Satanic coven, Mary learns that she might be expected to have sex with some of the members. She is horrified to discover that this may include one or more of the “negroes”. This is something that no decent, self-respecting white girl would ever consider, apparently.
So yes, that certainly left a sour taste.
The book concludes with Mary getting what every young lady truly desires, a marriage proposal. And that’s not all, because her suitor (ie Barney) also has a title (Lord) which means that she will too (Lady). It’s all so terribly terribly British, isn’t it?
May 26, 2021
Some authors popular in their day remain so..some become footnotes and get largely forgot by modern audiences a fate that seems rapidly to be becoming the case for Wheatley.
In fairness some of his apparent values are maybe ..well more than maybe..are certainly not in line with a great many..there's little doubt of his political leanings(to the right) and there's a rich vein of xenophobia ,casual racism and misogyny in this book and others I've read by him.
Yet oddly.... there's stuff to like to a times the plot grips and although it reads sometimes like a Occult Bond novel I didn't wholly feel I wasted my time ploughing through this.
Is it time to reclaim Wheatley?..maybe not..I didn't enjoy it that much and the flaws did take away my enjoyment..however I won't wholly avoid him if chancing upon more at some car boot sale or whatever.
In fairness some of his apparent values are maybe ..well more than maybe..are certainly not in line with a great many..there's little doubt of his political leanings(to the right) and there's a rich vein of xenophobia ,casual racism and misogyny in this book and others I've read by him.
Yet oddly.... there's stuff to like to a times the plot grips and although it reads sometimes like a Occult Bond novel I didn't wholly feel I wasted my time ploughing through this.
Is it time to reclaim Wheatley?..maybe not..I didn't enjoy it that much and the flaws did take away my enjoyment..however I won't wholly avoid him if chancing upon more at some car boot sale or whatever.
November 11, 2020
First and foremost, this is great fun. If you’re looking for a crash course in Black and White magic, this book is not for you. Instead, turn to The Devil Rides Out or To The Devil a Daughter. This is not an information manual the way the two other texts are. Instead, this is Wheatley flexing his muscles and letting the reader know that he knows his stuff in the arcane world of magic. It’s a thriller, and on that basis doesn’t disappoint. Yes, at times it is ponderous and bloated, but it’s what Wheatley does best: drags his reader on a careening course through bureaucracy, Satanism and magic. It’s not as chilling as some of his other work but still has some weight of its own. Fully recommended if a reader is looking for a distraction for a few days.
November 12, 2024
The Satanist might be titled "Satan on the Supertax." The 1945 general election results and the shift in mass psychology following on from decolonization in the 1950s weigh heavily on Wheatley's characters, good and evil.
The heroes and heroine are fine and gutsy. Even some villains have qualms, until bigger villains feed them homunculi that eat victims from inside out.
A pair of identical American twins emerge as mobilizers in the showdown. One on the good side, the other, not.
A younger couple on the good side experience the typical peripeteia of lovers in a Wheatley melodrama. The only things lacking are quicksand and a good woman being tied to a railroad track.
The heroes and heroine are fine and gutsy. Even some villains have qualms, until bigger villains feed them homunculi that eat victims from inside out.
A pair of identical American twins emerge as mobilizers in the showdown. One on the good side, the other, not.
A younger couple on the good side experience the typical peripeteia of lovers in a Wheatley melodrama. The only things lacking are quicksand and a good woman being tied to a railroad track.
September 4, 2022
The writing in this book is amazing. It's a long story about crime and the occult and many other themes going on including love and the end of the world. The characters all have a great degree of depth
September 26, 2018
Great story.
April 23, 2022
How does a book with such a title manage to be mind-numbingly boring?
June 23, 2022
waded through ten pages of thick continuous dialogue about nothing very much and lost interest
August 20, 2023
Turgid and overwrought hybrid occult/espionage thriller. Brian Lumley does this sort of thing much better.
July 30, 2025
I quit before ending it. There is so much good reading to do and time isn’t endless so I’m moving on to the next reading adventure.
February 28, 2016
I enjoyed this very much at the time that I was in my Dennis Wheatley phase. I was living in Warwick Square in London at the time and one of the characters in the book has a flat in Warwick Square! The flat I lived in was haunted and not pleasantly. In one of the rooms I had the same nightmare several times, in which I dreamed that someone came into the room and covered my face to try and suffocate me. Later another person sleeping in the same room recounted the same nigthmare without having heard mine! Perhaps Dennis Wheatley had once stayed in this flat? Anyone who knows anything about a Dennis Wheatley Warwick Square connection, please contact me. I should be very interested to learn more.
July 28, 2011
What a shame the lurid cover is not available. I read this in a tatty old Pan edition circa 1950. Like Mr W's other "black magic" books its full of some awful mystical tosh, some racist language and attitudes and the most outrageous paternalistic sexism. And yet this is a wildly entertaining book which includes a pretty nifty doppelganger theme, espionage, defence of the realm, and a virtuous widow (with a bit of a dark past) who is continually on the verge - but not quite - of succumbing to the kinky blandishments of a wicked London coven. As usual the loose tends are all tied up in a whizz-bang-wallop last page or two. Fan-bloody-tastic.
January 29, 2014
Years ago I read through this author's Duke de Richeleau series and I remembered finding them quite intriguing. So when I spotted this book I thought I'd give it a shot. It's still an interesting read, but at the same time I hadn't remembered how era specific the writing was - filled with classism, sexism, racism - at a level that we don't find remotely acceptable now, but was commonplace when he was writing. It was amusing to see how his writing also starts from the assumption that everyone simply accepts the existence of groups and people that practice black magic (and it works) as something more or less just part of everyday life.
November 12, 2024
The Satanist might be titled "Satan on the Supertax." The 1945 general election results and the shift in mass psychology following on from decolonization in the 1950s weigh heavily on Wheatley's characters, good and evil.
The heroes and heroine are fine and gutsy. Even some villains have qualms, until bigger villains feed them homunculi that eat victims from inside out.
A pair of identical American twins emerge as mobilizers in the showdown. One on the good side, the other, not.
A younger couple on the good side experience the typical peripeteia of lovers in a Wheatley melodrama. The only things lacking are quicksand and a good woman being tied to a railroad track.
The heroes and heroine are fine and gutsy. Even some villains have qualms, until bigger villains feed them homunculi that eat victims from inside out.
A pair of identical American twins emerge as mobilizers in the showdown. One on the good side, the other, not.
A younger couple on the good side experience the typical peripeteia of lovers in a Wheatley melodrama. The only things lacking are quicksand and a good woman being tied to a railroad track.
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