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  • Published: 1 September 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099471295
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $29.99

Fatal Lies

(Vienna Blood 3)




The third in the Dr Max Liebermann series; literature's first psychoanalytic detective

The hit novels behind the major new TV series Vienna Blood
___________________________

Vienna, 1903.

In St. Florian's military school, a rambling edifice set high in the hills of the city's famous woods, a young cadet is found dead - his body lacerated with razor wounds. Once again, Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt calls on his friend - and disciple of Freud - Doctor Max Liebermann, to help him with the investigation.

In the closed society of the school, power is everything - and suspicion falls on an elite group of cadets, with a penchant for sadism and dangerous games. When it is discovered that the dead boy was a frequent guest of the deputy headmaster's attractive young wife - other motives for murder suggest themselves.

A tangled web of relationships is uncovered, at the heart of which are St. Florian's dark secrets, which Liebermann, using new psychoanalytic tools such as dream interpretation and the ink-blot test, begins to probe. At the same time, a shocking revelation makes it impossible for Liebermann to pursue the object of his affections, the Englishwoman Miss Lydgate, and he finds himself romantically involved with the passionate and elemental Trezska Novak - a mysterious Hungarian concert violinist, gifted with uncannily accurate intuitions. Again, all is not what it seems, and Liebermann is drawn into the perilous world of espionage - and must make choices, the outcome of which will threaten the entire stability of the Empire.

  • Published: 1 September 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099471295
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 432
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

Frank Tallis

Frank Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. In 1999 he received a Writers' Award from the Arts Council and in 2000 he won the New London Writers' Award. Mortal Mischief was shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award in 2005 and for the prestigious Quais du Polar award in France, 2007. Vienna Blood was published in 2006 and Fatal Lies in 2007, both to great acclaim. Titles in the Liebermann series have been translated into fourteen languages.

Also by Frank Tallis

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Praise for Fatal Lies

Entertaining ... provides fascinating glimpses of the earliest use of Freudian theory in criminal investigations

Seven, The Sunday Telegraph

A clever plot, jokes for those who are interested in the history of psychoanalysis, and a convincing portrait of the imperial city combine in Fatal Lies to provide lively and enjoyable reading.

TLS

Don't read this on an empty stomach. Not, I hasten to add, for reasons of gore, but because of the Viennese cakes. Aficionados of classical music and architecture are also in for a treat: this, after all, is fin-de-siècle Vienna and Tallis has a supreme talent for bringing the city to life

Telegraph

... a sound tale, told with humour and elegance. An important plus, is Tallis's atmospheric evocation of a scintillating Vienna at the height of its artistic, intellectual and medical influence

Times

Tallis has come up with a particularly ingenious method of murder, which leaves no trace and almost claims the lives of two more victims before the culprit is unmasked. His novels show the modern world coming into existence in one of Europe's great cities, and are all the more poignant for the knowledge that the first world war will soon cast its shadow over his deeply humane characters

Sunday Times

An enjoyable and original series, of which this is the third volume ... Vivid and fascinating but with a sinister undercurrent ... Highly recommended.

Literary Review

The plot and subplots take in murder, espionage, sex, politics and the new psychoanalysis of Freud - all cleverly wrapped up in a pastiche of the stately written language of the time.

Newbooks Magazine

A fascinating portrait of one of the most vibrant yet sinister cities of fin-de-siecle Europe. On top of this, Tallis has laid a murder mystery of great intelligence

The Times

...his handling of the psychoanalysis and criminal pathology are fantastic . . . a romping tale

Scotland on Sunday