The List of Seven
| Author | Mark Frost |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Published | 1993 (QPD) |
The List of Seven is a 1993 novel by Mark Frost. Though initially an occult murder mystery, the story brings in conspiracy theory, vendetta, horror, history, and Theosophy. The main character is a real historical person (albeit engaging in fictional actions) and several other historical figures appear in the story.
Mark Frost followed the book with a sequel in 1995, The Six Messiahs.
Christmas Day 1884. Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle is invited to a seance where two people are apparently murdered. Doyle is saved by Armond Sacker, apparently a professor of Antiquities at Cambridge University. Doyle contacts Claude Leboux, a friend and Scotland Yard Inspector to investigate, but the house where the seance took place has been redecorated. Doyle gets a note from Helena Petrovna Blavatsky inviting him to a speech in Cambridge. He goes to Cambridge, unsuccessfully tries to track down Sacker, and then Doyle attends Blavatsky's talk, and speaks with her afterwards. She warns him of dark spirits and after a meal he is attacked and is rescued by "Professor Sacker" for a second time who turns out to be Jack Sparks, Special Agent to the Crown. They head to Topping to the estate of one of the attendees at the seance, but find that it has become a madhouse. They find a clue to go to a publishing house called Rathbourne & Sons in London. On the journey back to London, Jack reveals that his brother Alexander may be the mastermind behind all their troubles. Jack thinks the attacks on Doyle are prompted by a manuscript that Doyle submitted to Rathbourne & Sons. When they get to the publishing house they find a list of the board of directors - the titular “List of Seven”. A secret trapdoor leads them via an aqueduct to a storage room in the British Museum, which has had many statues stolen from it.
The next day they journey to Whitby to trace an acting troupe that may have been involved in staging the seance. There they meet Bram Stoker and an actress named Eileen, the last survivor of the doomed acting troupe. Stoker tells them that strange sights have been seen at the abandoned nunnery north of the town. They investigate, and witness an occult ceremony using the corpse of Sparks' father. Alexander Sparks confronts Doyle and Eileen and invites them to dinner, where they meet the rest of the Seven. Their plan is to take control of Prince Edward, Duke of Clarence, third in line to the throne, and use him to enslave the world by putting a demon in his future child. Doyle, Eileen and Jack fight with the Seven and with the help of a regiment of Royal Marines and Household Cavalry, they defeat the Seven.
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