Book Review: The Deadly Percheron by John Franklin Bardin
A bizarre and deeply disturbing conspiracy upends the life of a New York psychiatrist
Penguin Modern Classics – Crime & Espionage, 2024
Memories exist whole in the mind; to put them down in words demands sequence, a sense of time and space, of then and now. But when one remembers an event that belongs to the far past and relates it to another happening that belongs to yesterday, these memories exist together simultaneously - they are both, for a moment, now, not then.
One of the greatest highs as a reader is finding the exact book at the right time completely by chance, which is why I tend to ignore recommendations by algorithm. On this occasion, I had just finished pitching a follow up to Dark Century; a story involving impostors, unreliable narrators and a deep-rooted conspiracy, when I picked up this Penguin re-issue at random. I couldn’t believe I had picked up a book which promised a vaguely similar plot and themes to what I was proposing, but this story was written in 1946.
Naturally, I inhaled it in a day, and The Deadly Percheron was everything I hoped for.
Written in a spurt of creative output in the mid 40s which birthed three novels by crime writer John Franklin Bardin, this noir mystery is set in New York, opening with psychiatrist George Matthews in consultation with a new patient who is convinced he is going mad.
From there, events lurch into the increasingly weird and fantastical as Matthews is drawn into a devious conspiracy, trying to piece together missing periods of his life: beginning with why he isn’t Dr George Matthews – respected Manhattan psychiatrist – but John Brown, a disfigured vagrant forced to seek employment in a rundown cafe on Coney Island. I remember reading Hugo Wilcken’s The Reflection a few years ago which had a remarkably similar plot, and was unsurprised to note that Wilcken owes an enormous debt to Franklin, for good reason.
Whilst there are some dated attitudes in the story, Penguin have done a sterling job of resurrecting this lost American classic. If weird, disconcerting reads are your thing, then The Deadly Percheron comes highly recommended.
This review originally appeared in Dispatch Edition #5.
The Dispatch is a monthly roundup by British speculative fiction writer, Jordan Acosta. News, short reviews and more, published every first Thursday. You can subscribe at jordanacosta.co, and read previous editions, here.
