It was only a scrawled note with a drawing of a stick figure and a cryptic reference to "the Gaunt Woman," but when Sir Martin Rolfe, a powerful British official, reads it, he nearly succumbs to a heart attack in a fit of terror. Peter Vanin, a Russian operative, thinks the secret of the Gaunt Woman could bring Britain to its knees and is determined to solve the riddle. But the truth is more terrible than anyone could imagine, a horrible tale of monstrosity, insanity, and a series of unthinkable murders ...

John Blackburn (1923-1993) was the author of 28 novels that blended the genres of mystery, thriller, horror, and science fiction in new and exciting ways, and The Gaunt Woman (1962) is one of his most gripping tales, a Cold War-era story that blends espionage and horror and unusually features a sympathetic Soviet as its protagonist.