THE LAND OF LEYS

by L. P. Davies ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 5, 1979

Davies has regularly drifted from mystery into occult formula--and this is a low-grade mix of Dennis Wheatley and H. P. Lovecraft, without Wheatley's density of psychic verisimilitude or Lovecraft's apocaltypic horror. Andrew Leigh, a smalltown English villager and realtor, awakes from a highway accident to discover a nasty bump on his head and slowly comes to realize that he doesn't know where he's been for the past two days. Conversation with a doctor reveals that he's actually been living a double life for several months, losing three days of every week to some weird other life, then returning to his regular business as a realtor. Falling in with the beautiful virgin Althea. Andrew finds that he has been taking over his dead brother Jeremy's life, living in Jeremy's junkyard (Jeremy drowned under strange circumstances). And he also learns that Jeremy had been collecting carved figures of local ""elementals"" and country spirits and had bought a strange painting and a ""grimoire""--a book of black incantations. Soon, among other ghostly happenings, Althea and Andrew are teleported to unfamiliar places in the country, coming into knowledge of ""leys""--lines of force--that crisscross England and have psychic powers. And at last they wind up at a black mass in the cellar of a millionaire psychiatrist (he's been using hallucinogens on patients), where Althea is to be the devil's bride in hell. . . . Hooey.

Pub Date: Oct. 5, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION