The Touch of Evil

by Lydia Colby, W.E.D. Ross (AKA)

WALTER WAS DEAD, WASN’T HE?

Having lost her first love to the Church, Annette married his brother, who was soon to be governor of California. Rumor had it that the Burns fortune had bought Walter the governorship; and it was not secret that Harry K. Burns, wealthy and obsessed with power, wanted to see his brilliant stepson elected president of the United States. But, tragically, Walter was shot down before that ambition could be fulfilled, and Annette was whisked away to the family castle to recover from the shock. There, haunted by nightmare visions and terrified that she may be losing her mind, Annette has her worst fears realized when she comes face-to-face with Walter’s ghost!

Genres: Gothic

190 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1977

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, Ross Olin, 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

[MV · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the second in the Moonstone Gothic series published by Playboy Press (the publishing arm of Playboy Enterprises - yes, Hefner's Playboy) in the 1970s. (The Goodreads details list this edition as an Ace Gothic, but the cover shown matches my Playboy Press edition and you can see the PP logo in the upper righthand corner.) Lydia Colby is a pseudonym for that prolific pulp gothic author, W.E.D. (Dan) Ross. As far as I can tell, this is the only time Ross used the Colby pseudo. If you're familiar with Ross books, well, this is pretty typical. The writing style is dull and blow-by-blow. It's functional, but not very exciting. The story is interesting, but is definitely more of a murder mystery than a real gothic. The mystery revolves around a lot of political intrigue with a wealthy, tightly controlled family, a creepy psychiatrist, and scandals galore. I was actually interested to finish the story, so that's something - I have DNFed plenty of Ross books in the past.