Blending dark fantasy, political satire, and philosophical inquiry, Rübezahl is a haunting novel about manipulation, mass belief, and the dangerous freedom of clear thought.

A city drowns. Reality fractures.

One woman refuses to believe the lie. In a mythical Bohemian city on the brink of the modern age, Waltraud lives an unconventional life — independent, skeptical, and resistant to authority. But when she begins hearing the cries of Rübezahl, a winged old man imprisoned beneath the city, her world begins to unravel.

Rübezahl claims he once cared for her as a child. Now he wants her help to escape. When she refuses, violence follows — and soon the creature is free.

His vengeance takes the form of a strange and sinister rain. As it falls, the city floods with hallucinations and apathy. The population grows docile. Leaders pursue absurd solutions. Class conflict ignites. And the truth becomes impossible to separate from illusion. Waltraud alone seems immune.

Guided by a half-stupefied scientist and armed with an experimental weapon, she fights to stop Rübezahl as the city collapses — and later pursues him into the mountains, where myth, journalism, and public sympathy twist the nature of justice itself.

M. Laszlo is the pseudonym of a reclusive author based in Bath, Ohio, possibly inspired by the character Victor Laszlo from Casablanca. He has lived and worked internationally, keeping detailed journals and idea books throughout his life—a habit that began in childhood during summers in Castine, Maine.
His experiences abroad, particularly in Jerusalem where he worked in a Palestinian youth hostel and later with Harvard University’s Semitic Museum, have heavily influenced his writing. One of his works, Anastasia’s Midnight Song, draws directly from these journals.
Laszlo has also lived in New York City and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Hiram College and an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.