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In 1902, elegant Vienna is the city of the new century, the center of discoveries in everything from the writing of music to the workings of the human mind. But now a brutal homicide has stunned its citizens and appears to have bridged the gap between science and the supernatural. Two very different sleuths from opposite ends of the spectrum will need to combine their talents to solve the boggling crime: Detective Oskar Rheinhardt, who is on the cutting edge of modern police work, and his friend Dr. Max Liebermann, a follower of Sigmund Freud and a pioneer on new frontiers of psychology. As a team they must use both hard evidence and intuitive analysis to solve a medium's mysterious murder-one that couldn't have been committed by anyone alive.THE MORTALIS DOSSIER- PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS: THE CURIOUS CASE OF PROFESSOR SIGMUND F. AND DETECTIVE FICTIONSummertime-the Austrian Alps: A middle-aged doctor, wishingto forget medicine, turns off the beaten track and begins a strenuousclimb. When he reaches the summit, he sits and contemplates the distantprospect. Suddenly he hears a voice."Are you a doctor"He is not alone. At first, he can't believe that he's being addressed.He turns and sees a sulky-looking eighteen-year-old. He recognizesher (she served him his meal the previous evening) . "Yes," he replies."I'm a doctor. How did you know that"She tells him that her nerves are bad, that she needs help.S ometimes she feels like she can't breathe, and there's a hammering inher head. And sometimes something very disturbing happens. She seesthings-including a face that fills her with horror. . . .Well, do you want to know what happens next I'd be surprised ifyou didn't.We have here all the ingredients of an engaging thriller: an isolatedsetting, a strange meeting, and a disconcerting confession.So where does this particular opening scene come from A littleknownwork by one of the queens of crime fiction A lost reel of anearly Hitchcock film, perhaps Neither. It is in fact a faithful summaryof the first few pages of Katharina by Sigmund Freud, also known ascase study number four in his Studies on Hysteria, co-authored with JosefBreuer and published in 1895.It is generally agreed that the detective thriller is a nineteenthcenturyinvention, perfected by the holy trinity of Collins, Poe, and(most importantly) Conan Doyle; however, the genre would havebeen quite different had it not been for the oblique influence of psychoanalysis.The psychological thriller often pays close attention topersonal history-childhood experiences, relationships, and significantlife events-in fact, the very same things that any self-respectingtherapist would want to know about. These days it's almost impossibleto think of the term "thriller" without mentally inserting the prefix"psychological."So how did this happen How did Freud's work come to influencethe development of an entire literary genre The answer is quite simple.He had some help-and that help came from the American filmindustry.Now it has to be said that Freud didn't like America. After visitingAmerica, he wrote: "I am very glad I am away from it, and even morethat I don't have to live there." He believed that American food hadgiven him a gastrointestinal illness, and that his short stay in Americahad caused his handwriting to deteriorate. His anti-American sentimentsfinally culminated with his famous remark that he consideredAmerica to be "a gigantic mistake."Be that as it may, although Freud didn't like America, Americaliked Freud. In fact, America loved him. And nowhere in America wasFreud more loved than in Hollywood.The special relationship between the film industry and psychoanalysisbegan in the 1930s, when many migr analysts-fleeingfrom the Nazis-settled on the West Coast. Entering analysis becamevery fashionable among the studio elite, and Hollywood soonacquired the sobriquet "couch canyon." Dr. Ralph Greenson, forexample-a well-known Hollywood analyst-had a patient list thatincluded the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis,and Vivien Leigh. And among the many Hollywood directors whosuccumbed to Freud's influence was Alfred Hitchcock, whose thrillerswere much more psychological than any that had been filmed before.In one of his films Freud actually makes an appearance-well, more orless. I am thinking here of Spellbound, released in 1945, and based onFrancis Beedings's crime novel The House of Dr. Edwardes.T he producer of Spellbound, David O. Selznick, was himself inpsychoanalysis-as were most of his family-and so enthusiastic washe about Freud's ideas that he recruited his own analyst to help himvet the script. Hitchcock's film has everything we expect from a psychologicalthriller: a clinical setting, a murder, a man who has lost hismemory, a dream sequence, and a sinewy plot that twists and turnstoward a dramatic climax. That this film owes a large debt to psychoanalysisis made absolutely clear when a character appears who is-inall but name-Sigmund Freud: a wise old doctor with a beard, glasses,and a fantastically hammy Viennese accent.Since Hitchcock's time, authors and screenwriters have had muchfun playing with the resonances that exist between psychoanalysis anddetection. This kind of writing reached its apotheosis in 1975 with thepublication of Nicholas Meyer's The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, a novel inwhich Freud and Sherlock Holmes are brought together to solve thesame case.The relationship between psychoanalysis and detection was notlost on Freud. In his Introduct
About the Author
Dr Frank Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. He has held lecturing posts at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience and King's College London. He has published over 30 scientific papers in international journals and has written a textbook on cognitive and neuropsychological aspects of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) . He has written five works of psychology for the lay reader: Changing Minds (a history of psychotherapy) , Hidden Minds (a history of the unconscious) , Lovesick (an exploration of the relationship between romantic love and mental illness) , The Incurable Romantic (a clinical memoir) and The Act of Living: What the Great Psychologists can Teach us about Surviving Discontent in an Age of Anxiety. Frank Tallis' novels are: KILLING TIME (Penguin) , SENSING OTHERS (Penguin) , MORTAL MISCHIEF (Arrow) , VIENNA BLOOD (Arrow) , FATAL LIES (Arrow) , DARKNESS RISING (Arrow) , DEADLY COMMUNION (Arrow) , DEATH AND THE MAIDEN (Arrow) , and MEPHISTO WALTZ (Pegasus) . In 1999 he received a Writers' Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain and in 2000 he won the New London Writers' Award (London Arts Board) . In 2005 MORTAL MISCHIEF was shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award and for the Quais du Polar Award in France, 2007. FATAL LIES was longlisted for the International Thriller Writers' Best Paperback Award, 2010. DARKNESS RISING (VIENNA SECRETS in the USA) was runner up for the 2009 Medical Journalist's Association fiction award and shortlisted for the Elle Prix de Letrice in 2010. It was also nominated for an Anthony and an Edgar in 2011. DEADLY COMMUNION (VIENNA TWILIGHT in the USA) was shortlisted for an Edgar in 2012. The Liebermann books have been translated into fourteen languages and adapted for television as the internationally successful TV series VIENNA BLOOD. For more information go to www.franktallis.com
