The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell

 

The year is 1935, the place Prague.  The world is unsettled with Hitler and his minions steadily taking power in Germany and propagating their racial theories wherever they could.  Dr. Viktor Kosarek, a newly established psychiatrist, has just taken a new job.

On the border between Czechoslovakia and Germany stands an old castle fortress named the Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane.  It is the location of Dr. Kosarek's new job.  The castle has stood for centuries and for centuries it has had the reputation of evil.  Now it is used to house only six patients.  Those six are the most heinous murderers of the region and are called The Devil's Six.  They are the patients Dr. Kosarek believes he can help.

Dr. Kosarek believes there is a deeply hidden part of each insane person's personality that he calls The Devil Aspect.  Similar to multiple personalities, it is formed when a youngster encounters such a horrific event that he or she cannot handle seeing it and represses even the memory.  That memory over the years becomes the evil part of the personality and does whatever it wants.  Dr. Kosarek believes that with drugs and hypnosis he can reach this evil and lance it, restoring the patient.

But as he treats each of the six, he finds something he doesn't expect.  He finds that each of them share a common delusion and an evil persona that insists it has survived for centuries and will survive forever.  Can he reach this evil before it is unleashed again?

This is a new author to me.  Russell is a highly regarded author in the horror/suspense genre.  He is the only person to ever win the McIlvanney Prize given to the best book of the year in the genre.  His work slowly builds tension and fear and the conclusion is a surprising one that the reader will not expect.  This book is recommended for readers of horror and suspense.