商品簡介
How can a physician diagnose death when the body reveals no disease, poison, injury or ordinary anatomical cause? Dr Lowell, a neurologist committed to scientific evidence, records a series of cases in which terror and physical collapse resist every accepted medical explanation. Told through his first-person account, the novel places clinical observation against phenomena that seem to belong beyond the boundaries of medicine. The investigation moves through New York hospitals, private medical facilities, victims' homes and city streets, while a parallel inquiry draws urban crime into the widening mystery. Among the few tangible clues are strange dolls and an old-fashioned shop near Battery Park, details that make the uncertain relationship between human beings and their likenesses increasingly disturbing. Each attempt to isolate a rational cause instead raises sharper questions about hypnotic influence, hidden forces and forms of knowledge that conventional science cannot readily contain. Medical horror and occult mystery converge through Lowell's disciplined scrutiny of apparently supernatural cases. His professional language gives the narrative the form of testimony: symptoms are examined, explanations tested and extraordinary claims confronted by a mind trained to doubt them. Yet ordinary life remains exposed to powers that may operate through thought, representation and destructive intent, leaving identity itself perilously difficult to define. This book was out of print for decades and is now republished by Alpha Editions. It has been restored for today's and future generations. This edition is not just a reprint - it's a collector's item and a cultural treasure.
