The Mesmeriser

The Mesmeriser Respectable. 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.

About The Author

Alan Sherry moved to Sydney from London in April 2011 with his wife and two children. Since that day, no one has ever called him Alan again. He’s a creative director and has built a career inventing narratives and developing marketing for brands to help them get noticed by their audiences. He loves what he does but also likes to spend time following his own briefs. He takes inspiration where he can find it – from music, art and movies mostly. More recently, Sydney and those who founded it have piqued his creative curiosity. In particular, the characters from his old hometown who preferred to dwell in the shadows of his current one intrigue him most.

And while many were just flawed humans trying to find their place in a place trying to find itself, some were much more than that. They exemplified an even darker side of the colonial conquests, a decay beneath the imperial pride. But in a landscape dominated by the traditional fables of ‘famous’ Australian criminality, the tales of these social misfits are often lost.

However, their stories are often far more layered, bizarre and sinister than the well-documented legends. Al is intrigued by these people – the downtrodden trying desperately to become the dominators – and the measures some of them were prepared to employ to make that happen.