Leo Perutz, author of The Master of the Day of Judgment, was born in Prague and later emigrated to Vienna. According to Dr. Fritz Wittels, who has written an illuminating introduction to the book, the literature of Perutz is saturated with the "curiously somber and mysterious character" of this strangely fascinating metropolis of present-day Czechoslovakia built by Germans in the midst of a Slav population. Tales of adventure and horror, he says, breed there and recall the fact that Gustav Meyrink's Golem had its action laid in the medieval Ghetto of Prague. It is an extremely interesting foreword and prepares the mind of the reader for the compelling tale of mystery which follows. Prague, as a matter of fact, does not figure in this story at all. The scene is laid in Vienna and the peculiar influence that controls the lives of the people of the book reaches out from the Florence of the days of the Medicis.

The story is told in the first person by Baron von Yosch, Austrian cavalry officer, who, out of a clear sky, is accused of the murder of Eugene Bischoff, a famous actor. The scene is typically Viennese. Von Yosch, at the invitation of Dr. von Gorsky, rather unwillingly accepts an invitation to go the Villa Bischoff for an evening of chamber music. Dina Bischoff, before her marriage to the actor, had been von Yosch's mistress, and the latter, although accepting his new status, still loves her. While they are playing a Brahms trio they are interrupted by a newcomer, Engineer Waldemar Solgrub, a friend of the Bischoffs. When the music ends Bischoff, who, it is known, is worried about his failing art as a creator of new rôles, tells his guests a weird story of two suicides that recently occurred in Vienna, one that of an art student, the second that of a naval officer, brother of the first. In each instance the decision to meet death seemed instantaneous; each suicide was strangely preceded by the smoking of a cigarette.

To change the macabre trend of the evening's conversation, Bischoff is asked to give a rendition of his new rôle at the theatre, that of Richard III. After much talk he consents, but asks to be excused while he goes to the Summer house to prepare for the recital. Shortly after two shots ring out and Bischoff is found dead, a smoking revolver in his hand. Shortly after Felix, Dina's brother, accuses von Yosch of murder, pointing out that the latter's pipe, still glowing, was found near the body.

Solgrub is certain it was suicide and asks for time to solve the mystery. His investigations lead him to a similar case of attempted suicide that took place the day after Bischoff's death, that of a young art student whom the actor had befriended. She, too, was found with a smoking cigarette. Convinced that some horrid monster has controlled the destinies of all the people who sought death so strangely, Solgrub continues the search until he discovers the source of evil. At this point the story goes back to a short tale of horror and alchemy in Florence. It explains the mystery of the "Master" of the day of judgment, but not until Solgrub, too, has succumbed to the spell of death.

Perutz tells his tale in a flowing, worldly manner that gives the very flavor of life in Vienna in the old days, cultured, mocking, gay. The book makes interesting reading both for its story and the fine technique of its telling.