Wealthy, depraved and hugely gifted, Luigi Teramo likes to thinkof himself as a cross between a pagan fertility god and an evil wizard. Luigi has deliberately rejected his youthful talent for art in favour of making money, and of spending his fortune on young men and drugs. But he cannot bring himself to destroy the fruits of that rejected talent - his early paintings. And as the years pass, it starts to seem that those paintings possess a terrible power. A power that will cause Luigi’s life to spin out of control, will destroy almost all who get close to him, and will end by involving him in blackmail, and murder…
The Dark Paintings is both a thriller and a black comedy - entertaining, shocking and profoundly disturbing.

Selected Press Reviews:

Richard Labonte - Books to Watch Out For - May 2006

Fleetwood, a British writer with some two dozen books published over more than three decades, isn't particularly known as a gay novelist - though he's had several quite queer short stories published in Gay Men's Press ,anthologies over the years.
This eruditely horrific novel, however, is a very gay tale indeed, with a malevolent mystery at its heart: one after another, a wealthy older Italian man's breathtakingly beautiful young male lovers are dying.
The story is mannered, in the style of Patricia Highsmith's several Ripley novels (think Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley, if you haven't read the books); eerie, in the style of Clive Barker's supernatural-tinged novels; and steeped in the suffocating atmosphere of a rural village where everyone knows everybody else’s business - or thinks they do. You can't always tell a book by its cover (in this case, a painting by Fleetwood, who is also an accomplished artist), but the title goes a long way toward unraveling what's behind the spooky deaths.
This is a riveting and cultured read, with a titillating whiff of the perverse and a compelling miasma of creepiness permeating every twist of its smart plot.

Other Resources

Read Hugh Fleetwood's Author Profile <here>


The Dark Paintings was published by BIGfib in 2006. Buy it <here>.

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