To The Last Page

There’s a curiously split personality about A. Phillips’ A Preamble to Depravity , the first book in his Electrical Hearts series following the prelude of A Magical Tale With Geek Appeal , a division that perhaps lies within the concept of the work itself. It's essential to maintain a slightly distanced tone, and indeed it can even be seen in the nature of this book’s lead character, Inspector Alexander von Purzeus, an official of the Hapsburg Empire who has a very high opinion of himself and his ‘suprasensual’ powers. The conflict within von Purzeus and his sexual appetites can be identified to some extent by his strange semi-metamorphosis early in the book to bear the head of a lion and the body of a man. For one reason or another, but probably a combination of events involving the ignominious death of a perverted colonel, the suspicious death of a crown prince in Mayerling, and his prominence and notoriety in organising ‘suprasensual’ (sadomasochist) orgies of the utmost depravi...