THE DEATH TABLEAU is a discomforting excursion into the seediness and tedium of real and terrifying 'evil'.

Using word pictures that hit you like a brick wall, Herbertson tests his lady hero to the limit and beyond. With a backstory already containing enough 'pain' for several lifetimes, our hero, the independent,

Antique-loving widow Professor Peralis has several seemingly chance encounters and, drawn into a web of low magick, endures a vile process of dehumanisation, involving rape, violence and mental torture.
At times touching on the brilliance of Lewis and Priestley with his descriptions of things beyond description, Herbertson takes his readers beyond the wardrobe of fantastical psychic outfits necessary for the performance of our daily masques of mundanity, showing how the true ashlar is wrought only through being hit quite hard with sharp objects.
AND THE CARS THEY BURN BELOW ME
The final dramatic rooftop scene is David Lindsay transposed to 'eighties Madchester. It is hard not to hear The Stone Roses as you read.
ARE YOU ALL ALONE?
ARE YOU MADE OF STONE?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Craig Herbertson, born in Edinburgh in 1959, is the author of several critically acclaimed short horror stories, some of which are published in the collection 'The Heavenmaker & other Gruesome Tales', as well as the novel School: The Seventh Silence.