by F. R. Tallis
I consulted a genuine bomb-maker’s manual written by a nineteenth-century anarchist to find out what chemicals and apparatus might be discovered in a bomb-maker’s basement around the turn of the century. I’m disinclined to give the exact reference—just in case. Making explosives produced strong smells, which is why I located the bomb factory between the gasworks, a chemical plant, and the Danube Canal.
The term “propaganda by the deed” (alternatively “propaganda of the deed”) derives from the French propagande par le fait. It is primarily associated with late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century acts of “exemplary” violence perpetrated by mostly left wing activists. We would call it “terrorism.”
Bolko the Small was the last independent Silesian Duke of the Piast dynasty and he died on the July 13, 1368.
Joseph I was Holy Roman Emperor from 1705 to 1711 and a notorious womanizer. The defenestration of the unhappy Jesuit is decribed in Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe by Simon Winder. (The only history of the Habsburg dynasty that will make you laugh. It is a treasure trove of historical anecdotes and curiosities.)
Sečovlje is a settlement in the Littoral region of Slovenia and famous for its salt pans. Salt production dates back to the twelfth century but increased greatly during the Austria-Hungary period.
Jean-Baptiste le Rond D’Alembert (1717–1783) was a French mathematician who developed a gambling system now known eponymously as the D’Alembert system. It does not work on account of a flawed understanding of probability.
The Sanjak of Novi Bazar or Pazar was an Ottomon administrative outpost and is now in Raška.
Pseudologica fantastica or mythomania is a psychiatric “illness” characterized by compulsive and pathological lying. The condition was first decribed by the German psychiatrist Anton Delbrueck (1862–1944) in 1891.
Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931) was a French doctor and polymath whose most influential work was The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, published in 1895. The summary of Le Bon’s ideas presented to Liebermann by Sigmund Freud is based on passages in “Le Bon’s Description of the Group Mind,” which is the second section of Freud’s seminal work, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Although Group Psychology wasn’t published until 1921, Freud would almost certainly have been familiar with the work of Le Bon in 1904.
Captain Hoover’s walk to work, from his hotel to the War Ministry, faithfully shadows Alfred Redl’s walk to work as described in The Panther’s Feast by Robert Asprey. This volume also contains an account of the internal workings of the intelligence bureau and numerous period details (such as how “bugging” was achieved before the advent of electronic listening devices).
The song about Franz Javurek, the hero of Sadowa, is also taken from The Panther’s Feast.
Mephistopheles and his biography are closely modelled on the life and work of the Russian anarchist Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921). Kropotkin was a favorite teenage page of Alexander II. Thereafter, he joined a Cossack regiment posted in Siberia. He became a distinguished scientist and was one of anarchisms greatest propagandists. His work on animal behavior—particularly mutal aid—represents a fascinating challenge to Darwinian orthodoxy. A very fine summary of Kropotkin’s ideas on mutual aid and cooperation in the natural world can be found in The Prince of Evolution by Lee Alan Dugatkin.
The utopian community that Mephistopheles visits in America is based on the Oneida colonists (who were located in upstate New York). Their social experiment lasted from 1848 to 1881.
Djujevi stupovi is a Serbian Orthodox monastery dedicated to St. George and located near Novi Pazar. It was completed in 1171.
Ferdinand Porsche (1875–1951) was a car engineer and most famous today for founding the Porsche motor company. In 1898, Porsche started working for Jakob Lohner and Company (the royal carriage makers) in Vienna. He was still working in Vienna in 1904. Porsche established himself as a supremely talented motor engineer after creating the first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle (Lohner-Porsche, 1901). For a time he was Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s chauffeur. Porsche was also the winner of the Exelberg rally in 1901 (driving a front-wheel-drive hybrid).
The Rhineland Massacres—or the German Crusade of 1096—is a very early example of what came to be known as a “pogrom.” Some historians consider the German Crusade the beginning of a program of antisemetic persecution that continued and developed until reaching its tragic end point: the holocaust of World War II.
Forensic information about inks was taken from the relevant pages of Criminal Investigation: A Practical Textbook for Magistrates, Police Officers and Lawyers by Hans Gross. The characteristics of fingerprints are extensively described in Fingerprints by Colin Beavan.
The Palais Khevenhüller is fictional and cannot be found in Josefstadt.
I am indebted to my agent, Clare Alexander; Steve Matthews, for ongoing and rewarding discussions concerning all aspects of writing; Nicola Fox, for making some useful plot suggestions; and Lieutenant Colonel Michael Pandolfo USAF (ret.) for answering questions concerning explosives, detonators, and handguns. Any flaws, errors or shortcomings in Mephisto Waltz are entirely mine.
Frank Tallis
ALSO BY FRANK TALLIS
CRIME BOOKS
Killing Time
Sensing Others
THE LIEBERMANN MYSTERIES
A Death in Vienna
Vienna Blood
Fatal Lies
Vienna Secrets
Vienna Twilight
Death and the Maiden
SUPERNATURAL FICTION (WRITTEN AS F. R. TALLIS)
The Forbidden
The Sleep Room
The Voices
The Passenger
NON-FICTION/PSYCHOLOGY
Changing Minds
Hidden Minds
Love Sick
The Incurable Romantic
MEPHISTO WALTZ
Pegasus Books Ltd.
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Copyright © 2018 by Frank Tallis
First Pegasus Books cloth edition February 2018
Interior design by Maria Fernandez
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ISBN: 978-1-68177-643-9
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