The Hand of the Dead by Alfredo Hogan

La Mano del Muerto (Spanish)

A Mão do Finado (Portuguese)

La main du défunt by F. LePrince (French)

Non-spoiler teaser:

THIS is the novel that sinks to new lows of sucktitude. Alexandre Dumas knew of it and had some choice words for it like "execrable" and "repulsive". Hogan must have really hated Dumas' original, because he sought to "right it" by turning Benedetto into a reverse Edmond Dantes to get revenge in massively disproportionate amounts. Benedetto, as his new main character and mouthpiece, self-righteously and constantly blathers about "God's justice" and takes advantage of people's disastrous superstitions and religious beliefs which gave him loads of power to force obedience from ALL of them, including the Count!

Hint: Everybody who's not named Eugenie or Louise or Peppino is TOTALLY SCREWED in the Hogan-verse, a dark, messed-up, oozing with evil, not-so-fun funhouse mirror of the original.

Want to read this? DM me because I had to Google-Translate it because it was never released in English.

Don't want to read this and want a spoiler-loaded recap that'll save HOURS of your life by not reading the book?

Head on over to my Alfredo Hogan page:

The Hand of the Dead