Monsieur Aristide
And the Hanged Man's House
by Ray Sproule

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The third book in The Thorne Quartet is a psychological thriller that takes Matthew Thorne, a former Canadian Army intelligence officer, on a quest to investigate the disappearance of Monsieur Aristide, a shadowy, éminence grise in the French Secret Service, a quest leading Thorne from Paris to Malta, then to Casablanca, and eventually to the prehistoric menhir fields and pig farms of Brittany. As the search evolves, there is an increasing sense of impending confrontation; madness and treachery, and a hint that Aristide may be luring a nemesis of his from the past into a deadly viper’s snare. Throughout, Thorne is psychologically torn between understanding his own nature and his relationship with a cast of bizarre creatures—some of them assassins—that seem to surround and suffocate him. Only in the twisted house will Thorne find some of the answers.

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Ray Sproule has a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has been writing fiction from an early age and has lately been influenced, once again, by Lawrence Durrell (The Alexandria Quartet) and, perhaps incongruously, by Kurt Vonnegut. This is his seventh novel. He was born in Montreal and raised two sons as a single parent. He lives on Vancouver Island, B.C., and currently enjoys chess, introspection, and researching personality disorders in preparation for his next book.

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