The Mesmeriser

The MesmeriserRespectable. Charming. Deranged.Surgeon-dentist Louis Bertrand arrives in Sydney with gleaming instruments, impeccable manners and a reputation polished to perfection. To polite society, he is a man of science and sophistication bringing the advances in modern dentistry to the colonies. But beneath the veneer lies something far darker.When Bertrand falls for Ellen, the elegant wife of a prominent banker, desire quickly turns into obsession. What follows is a spiral of delusion and depravity - a feverish descent into madness and the most bizarre behaviour that plays out in plain sight. The eventual crime of passion is merely the grim punctuation mark at the end of a tale so twisted, so flagrant, it could only have unfolded right under the noses of respectable society.Based on true events that scandalised nineteenth-century Sydney, The Mesmeriser is a chilling portrait of the man they called The Mad Dentist of Wynyard Square. It's a story of vanity, lust and the thin line between brilliance and insanity - a case where murder may be the least shocking of the perpetrator's crimes.