Little Demon in the City of Light

Advanced praise for Little Demon in the City of Light This is an amazing tale of sex and hypnosis and murder in Paris, and it's all true. Levingston has produced both a 'mesmerizing' crime story and also a fascinating look at science and society in the late 19th century. --Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute and author of biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs Vividly conjuring a sweeping cast of characters who reflect the lusty excess and dark anxieties of the times, Little Demon in the City of Light paints a lavish portrait of Belle epoque Paris while unfurling one of the most compelling murder trials in the city's history. With penetrating insight and radiant style, Steven Levingston has crafted a mesmerizing true story. --Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City and American Rose Like The Devil in the White City, this Little Demon in the City of Light tracks murder and sexual crime in the days of silk top hats and horse-drawn carriages. The reader will enter Paris, witness a grisly crime, then follow a trans-Atlantic escape and the relentless pursuit by the authorities. The tale plays out not as a whodunit, but rather as a will-she-get-away-it and... should she? In effect, the beautiful young Parisienne didn't plead insanity but rather hypnotism. Was she a calculating predator? Or was she herself a victim, mesmerized by her Svengali-like lover to commit crimes? You decide whether the lawyers, doctors and judges of 19th century Paris got the verdict right. --Richard Zacks, author of Island of Vice and The Pirate Hunter Steven Levingston has given us a deeply-researched and engagingly-told story of murder and science in turn-of-the-century Paris. We think of the Belle epoque as all light and gaiety, but the era had a macabre side as well, which Levingston vividly brings to life. --Douglas Starr, author of The Killer of Little Shepherds and Blood