Living with the Dead

The concluding volume of the trilogy, Living with the Dead is set in and around Toulouse, shortly after the death in Paris of Jane de La Vaudère. Madame Louvot is now serving as Paul Furneret’s housekeeper. He is living close to an old convent leased by the residents of which apparently have orders not to communicate with him, although they supply gods from their farm and their distillery to him via Madame Louvot. Seven years later, Paul Furneret is visited in his Toulousan cottage by Victor Marvaud and Gaston Lambrunet, who are keen to persuade him to return to Paris. Their visit coincides with a “coup” in the cult launched by Madame Zosima and now operated as quasi-Fouierist feminist “phalanstery.” Zosima is deposed, and her "convent" is taken over by a “trinity” led by Lilith, who have their own ideas regarding the supposed revelations of anterior lives. Also visiting are the Megisters, an English couple who owns both the convent and Paul’s cottage. Lilith has researched Paul’s background and discovered information that might help him to identify his mysterious “guardian angel” and to decipher the mystery of his supernatural ability, which she plans to exploit. Paul, who no longer needs the help of hypnotists to contact the dead, begins to develop new psychic powers, but not the ones Lilith sought to use. Those psychic phenomena have unintended fatal results, leaving Paul in no doubt as to the dangers inherent in his powers, confronting him with a stark challenge and an awkward dilemma...

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