This late Gothic novel holds its place in the final years of the Gothic movement even as the taste for terror receded. Green's abbot is Father Obando, a creature of one virtue and a thousand crimes who seeks religious power and sexual pleasure. He signs the contact of blood offered to him by the demon, Zatanai, then embarks upon a campaign of atrocities. He becomes the abbot of Montserrat by murdering the previous abbot and converting this holy fortress into a vast torture chamber. The pool of blood in the abbey vaults might have succeeded as the ultimate horror or horrors had Green not explained it away as a chemical illusion. Green also refused to permit evil to be victorious at the climax. Zatanai bears the abbot skyward through the rough of the burning abbey, then releases him to destruction, but not before a midair repentance. -- From Fantasy and Horror: A Critical and Historical Guide to Literature, Illustration, Film, TV, Radio, and the Internet p. 24