With a title like that, I had to pick up this strange tale by A. Merritt. Written in 1933, my edition is an Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 5, a digest format paperback - 'A $2.00 mystery for .25c.'
For me it was a real find, as it was the basis for the 1936 Tod Browning film Devil Doll. Another, later 1964 film, also called Devil Doll featured a living ventriloquist dummy, still good but different than this story of living dolls.
Written with a dry clinical style, Dr. Lowell, a medical man specializing in abnormal psychology recounts a strange case study. A man is brought in by the henchmen of a local gangster, in a state of paralysis near coma, his face a grimace of terror. No one can say what caused this attack. As Dr. Lowell works with the gangster boss Ricori to seek a cure, the patient dies. Searching for reasons, Dr. Lowell finds there have been many recent cases, the only link between them a love for children. As more patients succumb to the unknown malady, including his head nurse, Lowell discovers they all had contact with a mysterious Madame Mandilip in her strange doll shop. Her works are so unusually beautiful, people are literally entranced and consent to pose for her. Once the doll is made it is so lifelike! and Lowell and Ricori must work quickly as the new patients fall into a living death - or are murdered by tiny living dolls!
Yes, Madame Mandilip has moved across Europe practicing her hypnotic witchcraft and is now in New York adding to her collection of handmade dolls, imbued with the soul of the latest victim.
It's a great story that must have been exciting back in 1933. Today we have seen enough living dolls that it is not such a shocker, but this is strange and well plotted, full of ancient mysticism and tales of souls being captured in dolls from the time before Egypt.
A gem for those who like hypnotism, witchcraft, the power beyond death, and little dolls running around with long silver pins to stab you with.
1933 / Tradeback / 223 pages
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