While visiting a Welsh castle a young scholar finds himself at the center of occult rituals
and a murder mystery in this "absolute treat" of a gothic detective story ( The Guardian ) At
an end-of-the London season soiree the young Hungarian scholar-dilettante Janos Batky is
introduced to the Earl of Gwynedd a reclusive eccentric who is the subject of strange rumors.
Invited to the family seat Pendragon Castle in North Wales Batky receives a mysterious
phone-call warning him not to go. But go he does plunging him into a bizarre world of
mysticism and romance animal experimentation and planned murder. His quest to solve the
central mystery takes him down strange byways-old libraries and warehouse cellars Welsh
mountains and underground tombs. The Pendragon Legend is Antal Szerb's first novel and is a
gently satirical blend of gothic and romantic genres crossed with the murder mystery format to
produce a fast-moving and often hilarious romp. But beneath the surface the reader becomes
aware of a steely intelligence probing moral psychological and religious questions.