Translated by Tom Geddes

'A magically rendered tale which finds beauty in the depths of horror' Bizarre

In eighteenth-century Honfleur, a child is born with a terrifying destiny before him. His name is Latour, and his birth is the result of a brutal rape. His mother raises him with tender care even when it becomes clear there's something deeply wrong with the boy: he is physiologically incapable of feeling pain. After serving an apprenticeship with a local taxidermist, Latour leaves home with Valerie, the town whore, to explore the the lower depths of Paris.

Obsessed by his abnormality and fascinated by the dark mysteries of pain, Latour becomes trapped in a downward spiral of death, murder and dissection as he attempts to fathom the secrets of every organ in the human body. Through Valerie he finally meets the Marquis de Sade and becomes his manservant: an accomplice in his crimes and a faithful servant until death.

Born in Oslo in 1965, Nikolaj Frobenius has worked as a scriptwriter for both the theatre and the cinema. In this, his first novel to appear in English, he has taken the historical facts of Georges Latour's existence and transformed them into a terrifying narrative of flesh, blood and bones. Reading De Sade's Valet is like being flayed alive by language.

'Extraodinarily enthralling' The Independent on Sunday

'A superior spine-tingler' The Times

Price: £6.99/$14.95
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0-7145-3060-3
Fiction