Horror Aficionados discussion

André Bjerke’s The Lake of the Dead (1942) was voted the all-time best Norwegian thriller, and its atmospheric 1958 film adaptation is regarded as one of Norway’s best films. This new translation is the first-ever American publication of Bjerke’s classic, which features an unusual mixture of murder mystery and supernatural horror that will keep readers guessing until the thrilling conclusion.

In the novel, victims are sucked down to their deaths in a bottomless lake, preternaturally blue from the eternal blue hellfire said to burn in its depths. For the special limited hardcover edition (250 numbered copies), we had them bound in matching "hellfire blue" cloth, and they're really strikingly handsome books:



Book Description

Deep in the darkest part of the Norwegian woods stands Dead Man’s Cabin, where 110 years ago a madman slew his sister and her lover, throwing their decapitated corpses in a nearby lake before drowning himself to join them in death. Ever since, the cabin has been cursed, and anyone who spends the night there is possessed by the killer’s spirit and infected with his madness.

Bjørn Werner, a young scholar from Oslo, ignored the old superstitions and bought the cabin as a place to read and work in quiet. Now he has disappeared, and the evidence suggests he threw himself in the lake in a fit of insanity. The police write it off as a suicide, but those who knew him are not so sure. Could the curse actually be real? Bjørn’s sister and five of his friends travel to the cabin to look into his death, but not all of them will return alive from their stay at the Lake of the Dead ...

Reviews

"Bjerke's forgotten classic, with an excellent new translation, allows the creepy setting, menacing tone, and very real danger of the compelling and engaging story to shine in all its 1940s glory for a modern audience." - Library Journal

"Bjerke skillfully melds the classic country-house mystery with its equally classic horror-movie equivalent ... very neatly done and reads exceptionally well in Jenkins’s translation." - Michael Dirda, Washington Post

"Anyone who craves the kind of detective novel that incorporates impossibility and apparently supernatural aspects will get more than they ever bargained for in The Lake of the Dead. . . . This excellent mystery novel packs a wallop in the final pages." - Pretty Sinister Books

Order the limited edition hardcover, paperback, or ebook:

https://www.valancourtbooks.com/the-l...

This book is absolutely gorgeous in person!!!

thank you! :)