The Doom Stone

“They flung him back, disregarding him for the moment in their hushed amazement at the size and splendor of the stone, pulsing like a tawny heart as it caught the lantern rays.”

The man known as Escargot was just a lowly private in Louis XV’s army, grudgingly serving out his tour in India. Tired of the stinging heat and the mildewed barracks, tired of the snakes and insects that swarmed over everything. A man driven to near madness by isolation, who would do anything to get back to his native France.

One day he discovers a weathered idol in a secluded temple with eyes made of two enormous diamonds. Seizing the chance to buy his way to freedom, he unwittingly sets off a wave of tragedy that reaches across time, bringing death and ruin in its wake.

The novel follows the stone’s path across history through the stories of its many owners, including: a woman fleeing the Reign of Terror, an American opportunist locked in a deadly love triangle, and a cynical secret agent plying his trade in the early 1940s.

The Doom Stone was the last novel published during Woolrich’s life time, released only eight years before his death in 1968. It straddles the line between noir and the supernatural. Instead of a single protagonist, the novel’s instrument of vengeance is the mysterious stone, which reaches across time, altering the lives of saints and sinners alike.

This setup allows Woolrich to bring his brand of suspense to four distinctly different historical periods. You will experience the sweltering bazaars of India, the sweaty tension of eighteenth century France, the devastation of the post-Civil War American South, and the paranoid streets of pre-World War II Tokyo.