⭐⭐⭐⭐½ — 4.5 Stars

**The Eye of Goliath by Diego Muzzio, translated by Rahul Bery**

This was such a wonderfully strange and unsettling read. **The Eye of Goliath** takes the familiar gothic foundations of *Jekyll and Hyde* and transforms them into something much darker, more atmospheric, and psychologically disturbing. I went into this expecting a creepy gothic mystery, but what I got was a deeply unnerving exploration of obsession, trauma, madness, and the fragile boundary between doctor and patient.

The setting immediately pulled me in. The old sanatorium on the outskirts of Edinburgh is the perfect backdrop for this story, with its isolation and gloomy atmosphere creating a constant feeling that something is deeply wrong. There’s a wonderful sense of claustrophobia throughout the book, even when the characters aren't physically trapped. Everything feels cold, damp, secretive and increasingly detached from reality.

I was particularly fascinated by **David Bradley's** story. His transformation from a rational, disciplined engineer into a man completely consumed by the compulsion to swim is bizarre in the best possible way. It's such a simple concept, but the more we learn about what happened to him, the more disturbing it becomes. His diary entries were some of my favourite parts because they allowed us to slowly watch his mind unravel while still leaving enough mystery around what was actually happening.

Dr Edward Pierce was also a really interesting character to follow. His fascination with Bradley gradually becomes something much more obsessive, and I loved watching the boundaries between physician and patient become increasingly blurred. The more Pierce tries to understand Bradley, the more he seems to become entangled in the very thing he's investigating. There’s a constant question of who is actually studying whom, and I thought that was incredibly effective.

The horror here is much more **psychological and atmospheric** than outright terrifying, but there are some genuinely disturbing moments. Muzzio creates this creeping sense of dread where you know something is going to go horribly wrong, but you’re never quite sure how. The lighthouse, the sea, Bradley's compulsions and the strange medical experiments all contribute to an increasingly nightmarish atmosphere.

I also really appreciated how the story plays with ideas of **trauma and the aftermath of war**. The First World War isn't simply background scenery; its effects are woven into the characters and the treatments being explored. There’s an interesting tension between the desire to understand and cure psychological suffering and the dangerous lengths people might go to in pursuit of that understanding.

The writing is beautifully atmospheric without losing the momentum of the story. Rahul Bery's translation also deserves credit for preserving that unsettling, gothic quality. There are moments that feel almost dreamlike, followed immediately by something cold and disturbing, which made the whole reading experience feel slightly surreal.

My only reason for not giving this a full five stars is that there were moments where the story became a little more abstract and detached than I personally preferred. Some of the psychological elements are deliberately ambiguous, and while I enjoyed that overall, there were a few points where I wanted just a little more clarity or connection between certain ideas.

Still, this is a **really memorable piece of gothic psychological horror**. It feels familiar enough to draw you in but strange enough to keep you constantly questioning what you're reading. If you enjoy atmospheric literary horror, unreliable narrators, medical gothic stories, or books that slowly descend into madness, I think this is definitely worth picking up.

**Dark, eerie, beautifully strange and genuinely compelling.** *The Eye of Goliath* left me with the distinct feeling that I had just read something I wasn't entirely supposed to understand—and honestly, I think that's part of what made it so effective. Definitely a book that will stick with me.