Malefic: An Alice Bright Occult Thriller

by Jon Towlson

When drama student Alice Bright arrives at the gothic Cadogan House in Knightsbridge, she expects a fresh start in London—and a room rented from fellow student Janice. But Janice is dead, found hanging in the building’s lift in what appears to be a bizarre suicide. With nowhere else to go, Alice is offered a place to stay by a nervous neighbour, Kathy, and quickly becomes entangled in a web of paranoia, occult symbols, and sinister secrets.

The deeper Alice digs into the building’s past, the more she a scandal involving sex, drugs and Satanism in the 1960s, a string of unsolved deaths, and the mysterious figure of Victor Prince—once a film director, now a recluse. But it is the enigmatic concierge, Mr. Quigley, who hides the darkest truth of all.

As supernatural forces close in and reality begins to fray, Alice must confront the terrifying possibility that something evil has taken root in Cadogan House—and it wants her soul.

175 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 12, 2026

About the author

Jon Towlson is a film critic and the author of 40 CULT MOVIES: FROM ALICE, SWEET ALICE TO ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU (2023), MIDNIGHT COWBOY (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023), DAWN OF THE DEAD (DEVIL'S ADVOCATES) (Auteur/ Liverpool University Press, 2022), GLOBAL HORROR CINEMA TODAY (McFarland, 2021), CANDYMAN (DEVIL'S ADVOCATES) (Auteur/Columbia University Press, 2018), THE TURN TO GRUESOMENESS IN AMERICAN HORROR FILMS, 1931-1936 (McFarland, 2016), CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (CONSTELLATIONS) (Auteur/Columbia University Press, 2016) and SUBVERSIVE HORROR CINEMA: COUNTERCULTURAL MESSAGES OF FILMS FROM FRANKENSTEIN TO THE PRESENT (McFarland, 2014). He is a regular contributor to STARBURST MAGAZINE, and has also written for the BFI, Scream, The Dark Side, Diabolique, Paracinema, Exquisite Terror, Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, Shadowland Magazine, Bright Lights Film Journal, Offscreen, Cine Excess and Digital Film-Maker Magazine. Jon has contributed extras to Blu ray releases by Arrow, Second Sight, Eureka and 101 Films. Jon has been nominated several times for a Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award 'honoring the best in classic horror research'.

Jon hosts the official STARBURST horror podcast
FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS.