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• When Dr. Martin (Robert Powell) arrives at the Dunmoor Asylum for The Incurably Insane, he expects to be interviewed for a job by the asylum s director, Dr. Starr. Instead, he is met by Dr. Rutherford (Patrick Magee), who explains that Dr. Starr has suffered a mental breakdown and is now one of the patients. Dr. Rutherford states that if Martin can deduce which patient is Dr. Starr, then he will b

Powerful photographs of the grand exteriors and crumbling interiors of America's abandoned state mental hospitals.

From our most celebrated writer of the psychological thriller comes this nerve-wracking yet eerily beautiful work of erotic obsession and madness.

In the summer of 1959 Stella Raphael joins her psychiatrist husband, Max, at his new posting--a maximum-security hospital for the criminally insane. Beautiful and headstrong, Stella soon falls under the spell of! Edgar Stark, a brilliant and magnetic sculptor who has been confined to the hospital for murdering his wife in a psychotic rage.

But Stella's knowledge of Edgar's crime is no hindrance to the volcanic attraction that ensues--a passion that will consume Stella's sanity and destroy her and the lives of those around her.The New Yorker review praised Patrick McGrath's "ornate, deadpan style . . . distinguished by its unusual seriousness, its lack of camp," and described Asylum as a "layered, implicating book, whose terrors and malignities aren't quite the ones we expect, and are a matter of mood and viewpoint as well as of plot." McGrath's fourth novel (his other three are also highly recommended) features a subtly deceptive narrator whose confident, musical voice seduces you--a voice that mirrors, in its meter, emotions ranging from lyrically obsessed, to meticulously fond, to cautious and stiff with horror. And the imagery is unforgettable: the! grim architecture of the asylum; a ravaged human head with em! pty eye sockets; a drowning in a pool on a barren heath.

They were a band of outsiders unable to get jobs with New York's gilded financial establishment. They would go on to corner the world's multitrillion-dollar oil market, reaping unimaginable riches while bringing the economy to its knees.

Meet the self-anointed kings of the New York Mercantile Exchange. In some ways, they are everything you would expect them to be: a secretive, members-only club of men and women who live lavish lifestyles; cavort with politicians, strippers, and celebrities; and blissfully jacked up oil prices to nearly $150 a barrel while profiting off the misery of the working class. In other ways, they are nothing you can imagine: many come from working-class families themselves. The progeny of Jewish, Irish, and Italian immigrants who escaped war-torn Europe, they take pride in flagrantly spurning Wall Street.

Under the thumb of an all-powerful international oil cartel, the energy mark! et had long eluded the grasp of America's hungry capitalists. Neither the oil royalty of Houston nor the titans of Wall Street had ever succeeded in fully wresting away control. But facing extinction, the rough-and-tumble traders of Nymexâ€"led by the reluctant son of a produce merchantâ€"went after this Goliath and won, creating the world's first free oil market and minting billions in the process. Their stunning journey from poverty to prosperity belies the brutal and violent history that is their legacy.

For the first time, The Asylum unmasks the oil market's self-described "inmates" in all their unscripted and dysfunctional glory: the happily married father from Long Island whose lust for money and power was exceeded only by his taste for cruel pranks; the Italian kung fuâ€"fighting gasoline trader whose ferocity in the trading pits earned him countless millions; the cheerful Nazi hunter who traded quietly by day and ambushed Nazi sympathizers by night; ! and the Irish-born femme fatale who outsmarted all but one of ! the exch ange's chairmenâ€"the Hungarian emigre who, try as he might, could do nothing to rein in the oil market's unruly inhabitants.

From the treacherous boardroom schemes to the hookers and blow of the trading pits; from the repeat terrorist attacks and FBI stings to the grand alliances and outrageous fortunes that brought the global economy to the brink, The Asylum ventures deep into the belly of the beast, revealing how raw ambition and the endless quest for wealth can change the very nature of both man and market.

Showcasing seven years of research and hundreds of hours of interviews, Leah McGrath Goodman reveals what really happened behind the scenes as oil prices topped out and what choice the traders ultimately made when forced to choose between their longtime brotherhood and their precious oil monopoly.

When Dr. Martin (Robert Powell) arrives at the Dunsmoor Asylum for the incurably insane, he expects to be interviewed by asylum director Dr. Sta! rr. Instead he is met by Dr. Rutherford (Patrick Magee), who explains that Dr. Starr had suffered a mental breakdown and now is one of the patients. Dr. Rutherford decides that if Martin can deduce which one is really Dr. Starr, then he will be given the position. Is it Bonnie (Barbara Parkins), whose affair with a married man turns murderous? Is it Bruno (Barry Morse), a hardluck tailor visited by a mysterious stranger (Peter Cushing) with a blueprint and very special fabric for an unusual suit? Is it Barbara (Charlotte Rampling), accused of murdering her brother and her nurse but insisting that her friend Lucy (Britt Ekland) was responsible; Or is it Dr. Byron (Herbert Lom) who claims the ability to transfer collecting.One of the patients in an institution for the incurably insane was once its director, and a young psychiatrist (Robert Powell) has to figure out which one as they all tell him their stories. What better setting for a horror anthology? It's an inspire! d framing device, making this one of the better examples of th! e genre, even if screenwriter Robert Bloch at times resorts to gimmicks rather than invention. The first two stories are less than brilliant (the first is highlighted by dismembered body parts neatly wrapped in butcher paper wriggling back to life for revenge), but Charlotte Rampling and Britt Eklund are marvelous in the third tale, about a mentally unbalanced young woman and her dangerous best friend. Herbert Lom is also excellent in the final story as a scientist who carves an army of dolls he claims he can bring to life by sheer will power.

Director Roy Ward Baker (Quatermas and the Pit) builds momentum with each story until the dark and deliciously bloody climax. This Amicus Studios production looks visually dull compared to Hammer's gothic gloss, but it features a great British cast (including Patrick Magee and Hammer stalwart Peter Cushing), and ultimately Baker makes that gloomy look work for his increasingly creepy production. Amicus produced a series of horror anth! ologies, including the original 1972 Tales from the Crypt and The Torture Garden (also scripted by Bloch). --Sean Axmaker