{"product_id":"a-death-in-vienna-a-max-liebermann-mystery","title":"A Death in Vienna: A Max Liebermann Mystery","description":"In 1902, elegant Vienna is the city of the new century, the center of discoveries in everything from the writing of music to the workings of the human mind. But now a brutal homicide has stunned its citizens and appears to have bridged the gap between science and the supernatural. Two very different sleuths from opposite ends of the spectrum will need to combine their talents to solve the boggling crime: Detective Oskar Rheinhardt, who is on the cutting edge of modern police work, and his friend Dr. Max Liebermann, a follower of Sigmund Freud and a pioneer on new frontiers of psychology. As a team they must use both hard evidence and intuitive analysis to solve a medium’s mysterious murder–one that couldn’t have been committed by anyone alive.\n\n__________________________________________________________\n\nTHE MORTALIS DOSSIER- PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS: THE CURIOUS CASE OF PROFESSOR SIGMUND F. AND DETECTIVE FICTION\n\nSummertime–the Austrian Alps: A middle-aged doctor, wishing\nto forget medicine, turns off the beaten track and begins a strenuous\nclimb. When he reaches the summit, he sits and contemplates the distant\nprospect. Suddenly he hears a voice.\n“Are you a doctor?”\nHe is not alone. At first, he can’t believe that he’s being addressed.\nHe turns and sees a sulky-looking eighteen-year-old. He recognizes\nher (she served him his meal the previous evening). “Yes,” he replies.\n“I’m a doctor. How did you know that?”\nShe tells him that her nerves are bad, that she needs help.\nS ometimes she feels like she can’t breathe, and there’s a hammering in\nher head. And sometimes something very disturbing happens. She sees\nthings–including a face that fills her with horror. . . .\nWell, do you want to know what happens next? I’d be surprised if\nyou didn’t.\nWe have here all the ingredients of an engaging thriller: an isolated\nsetting, a strange meeting, and a disconcerting confession.\nSo where does this particular opening scene come from? A littleknown\nwork by one of the queens of crime fiction? A lost reel of an\nearly Hitchcock film, perhaps? Neither. It is in fact a faithful summary\nof the first few pages of Katharina by Sigmund Freud, also known as\ncase study number four in his Studies on Hysteria, co-authored with Josef\nBreuer and published in 1895.\nIt is generally agreed that the detective thriller is a nineteenthcentury\ninvention, perfected by the holy trinity of Collins, Poe, and\n(most importantly) Conan Doyle; however, the genre would have\nbeen quite different had it not been for the oblique influence of psychoanalysis.\nThe psychological thriller often pays close attention to\npersonal history–childhood experiences, relationships, and significant\nlife events–in fact, the very same things that any self-respecting\ntherapist would want to know about. These days it’s almost impossible\nto think of the term “thriller” without mentally inserting the prefix\n“psychological.”\nSo how did this happen? How did Freud’s work come to influence\nthe development of an entire literary genre? The answer is quite simple.\nHe had some help–and that help came from the American film\nindustry.\nNow it has to be said that Freud didn’t like America. After visiting\nAmerica, he wrote: “I am very glad I am away from it, and even more\nthat I don’t have to live there.” He believed that American food had\ngiven him a gastrointestinal illness, and that his short stay in America\nhad caused his handwriting to deteriorate. His anti-American sentiments\nfinally culminated with his famous remark that he considered\nAmerica to be “a gigantic mistake.”\nBe that as it may, although Freud didn’t like America, America\nliked Freud. In fact, America loved him. And nowhere in America was\nFreud more loved than in Hollywood.\nThe special relationship between the film industry and psychoanalysis\nbegan in the 1930s, when many émigré analysts–fleeing\nfrom the Nazis–settled on the West Coast. Entering analysis became\nvery fashionable among the studio elite, and Hollywood soon\nacquired the sobriquet “couch canyon.” Dr. Ralph Greenson, for\nexample–a well-known Hollywood analyst–had a patient list that\nincluded the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis,\nand Vivien Leigh. And among the many Hollywood directors who\nsuccumbed to Freud’s influence was Alfred Hitchcock, whose thrillers\nwere much more psychological than any that had been filmed before.\nIn one of his films Freud actually makes an appearance–well, more or\nless. I am thinking here of Spellbound, released in 1945, and based on\nFrancis Beedings’s crime novel The House of Dr. Edwardes.\nT he producer of Spellbound, David O. Selznick, was himself in\npsychoanalysis–as were most of his family–and so enthusiastic was\nhe about Freud’s ideas that he recruited his own analyst to help him\nvet the script. Hitchcock’s film has everything we expect from a psychological\nthriller: a clinical setting, a murder, a man who has lost his\nmemory, a dream sequence, and a sinewy plot that twists and turns\ntoward a dramatic climax. That\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 0812977637\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: LFV.0812977637.VG\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Very Good\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Tallis, Frank\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: Book is in very good condition.  Clean with little to no signs of wear or markings highlights.  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Books for Life","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45969437884613,"sku":"LFV.0812977637.VG","price":6.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0650\/2914\/4773\/files\/0812977637-0.jpg?v=1773766828","url":"https:\/\/www.booksforlife.store\/products\/a-death-in-vienna-a-max-liebermann-mystery","provider":"Books for Life","version":"1.0","type":"link"}