Publishers Weekly
A mesmerizing and melancholy narrative voice lends chilling credibility to this exceptional supernatural thriller. Milton scholar David Ullman, who teaches English literature at Columbia, believes that loneliness, each person’s going like Adam and Eve “their solitary way,” is the real theme of Paradise Lost. Outside of work, the professor has a failed marriage and a beloved 11-year-old daughter, Tess. One day, a “worryingly thin” woman with a generic European accent shows up at his campus office with an unusual offer. The woman, who says she represents a client “who demands discretion above all,” will pay Ullman a sum a third larger than his annual salary if he will travel immediately to Venice to observe a “phenomenon” that his expertise on demons qualifies him to assess. Ullman protests that he doesn’t believe in demons, but in the end, accompanied by Tess, he goes to Venice, where tragedy ensues. Pyper (Lost Girl) is especially gifted at plausibly anthropomorphizing inanimate objects to creepy effect. A standard rural mailbox is transformed into “a stooped figure, lurching after me, its mouth wide in a scream”; a book becomes “a mouth gasping for air.” Agent: Stephanie Cabot, the Gernert Company. (Mar.)
#1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
“Smart, thrilling, and utterly unnerving. Pyper’s gift is that he deeply respects his readers, yet still insists on reducing them to quivering children. I like that in a writer.”
New York Times bestselling author of Before I Go To Sleep
“Plenty of books claim to be scary, but this is genuinely terrifying, don’t-read-late-at-night stuff. Thrilling, compelling and beautifully written, The Demonologist makes Rosemary's Baby feel like a walk in the park.”
The New York Times Book Review
“It’s impossible to ignore the devils and demons who have a tangible presence in this story, but the novel’s deeper pleasure comes from the analysis Ullman applies to these horrors . . . Bring on the devils.”
Columbus Dispatch
"In the sly, creepy and often-horrific The Demonologist, Andrew Pyper knows how to get under the skin of even the most rational reader."
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“A chilling novel for readers who like their horror presented with literary flair.”
Maclean's (Canada)
“A fast-paced Exorcist-meets-Da Vinci Code.”
Toronto Star
“A complex novel about loss, anger, faith, grief, love and forgiveness . . . [The Demonologist] will frighten you out of your shoes.”
Montreal Gazette
“Pyper’s novel is enthralling in its subdued intensity. There are no pyrotechnics à la William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist—more a slow burn to a pulse-pounding end.”
The National Post (Canada)
"This book is going to be big, and it’s going to be popular, and it absolutely deserves to be both of these things. You should buy it, and read it, and let it scare you stupid."
Library Journal
Arthur Ellis Award winner Pyper returns with the tale of Professor David Ullman, an expert in demonic literature who doesn't believe in the subject of his research. Things change when a mysterious woman invites him to witness an event in Venice and his daughter is promptly kidnapped by the Unnamed. Film interest in this one, as well as Pyper's other best sellers (e.g., The Killing Circle).
Kirkus Reviews
In Pyper's (The Guardians, 2011, etc.) sixth novel, professor David Ullman's marriage has imploded, his closest confidant has terminal cancer, and he's been approached by a mysterious emaciated woman offering an all-expenses-paid first-class trip to Venice. A renowned expert on Milton's Paradise Lost, Ullman is a Columbia University professor. Acting on behalf of a nameless client, the Thin Woman, as Ullman calls her, asks him to observe a "phenomenon," a thing she too has seen, but "there is no name for it I could give." That evening Ullman's wife tells him she's leaving him for another man, and he decides to escape to Venice accompanied by his beloved daughter, Tess, "a smart, bookishly aloof girl," who like him is plagued by melancholy. In Venice, Ullman confronts one of the devil's Legion infecting an Italian professor's body. Ullman panics. Before he can gather his wits, Tess apparently commits suicide. As she leaps to her death, Ullman hears from her, in that same devilish voice, a recitation from Milton's epic. The action returns to New York City, Ullman confused, near-suicidal and haunted by the fear that all he has not believed may be real. "Screwing the lid off [his] imagination," Ullman reads Tess' diary and begins to think his daughter isn't dead but instead in the clutches of the Unnamed, perhaps one of Pandemonium's Stygian Council. Plagued by signs and omens, Ullman treks from North Dakota to Kansas to Florida to Ontario and back to New York. His confidant and friend, Elaine O'Brien, another professor, rides along in support. There are killings, possessions and philosophical speculations, with the pair shadowed by the Pursuer, perhaps an agent of Rome. Pyper is an intelligent writer, steeped in Miltonian symbolism, gifted with language, enough so that fans of the genre will shiver with cold sweat when the Stygian demon wanders out to bark, spit and hiss. This artful literary exploration of evil's manifestation makes for a sophisticated horror tale.
New York Times bestselling author of XO
“Richly crafted, deliriously scary and compulsively page-turning from beginning to end. Imagine The Exorcist and The Da Vinci Code as penned by Daphne du Maurier. Don't miss this one!”
New York Times bestselling author of The Lace Reader and The Map of True Places
“Smart and astonishing, Andrew Pyper has created a recurring nightmare for adults. The Demonologist holds a mirror to the reader and reveals the places where our deepest darkness lurks. Like Milton’s Paradise Lost, this is the story of the human condition, the fall, and the way back. I slept with the light on for nights, too obsessed to stop reading and too terrified to dream.”
New York Times bestselling author of Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel
“The Demonologist is that rare thing—a novel that is both genuinely terrifying and erudite. The research is excellent and lightly worn, the pace and cleverness of the plot thrilling. One of the most exciting works of fiction I’ve read for some time.”
New York Times bestselling author of The Prophet
“As compelling and smoothly chilling a tale as you’ll find this year. The Demonologist shows an enormously gifted writer at the top of his game, producing a novel of eerie menace and unique depth. Those of us who write supernatural stories do not throw the names Ira Levin, William Peter Blatty, and Peter Straub around lightly. You’ll be hearing all three associated with Mr. Pyper soon, and all such comparisons are warranted, the highest praise I can offer.”
Booklist
"The evil of Milton's pandemonium comes to life . . . Pyper's novel takes on "things that go bump in the brain" and delivers a stirring entry in the supernatural thriller genre."
CurledUp.com
“The intellectual’s Stephen King, Pyper lifts a tale of the impossible to the realm of waking nightmare.”
