Customer Reviews

Undying Love

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I saw an episode of a TV show called Haunted History. One of the stories was about this woman named Elena who dies, and a doctor who is obsessed with her ends up stealing her body from the cemetary, rebuilds the skin using wax, and kept the body for 7 years without being discovered. I was shocked to learn that was a true story. I could not beleive that someone could be that insane.

After getting the book about this story and reading it, I realized there was much more than meets the eye. (After reading the book, you will know what I mean) This book covers every detail, with pictures of almost everything. A haunting TRUE story that will keep you shivering. I enjoyed reading about this mans obsession with a dead woman. If you enjoy horror stories and sick twisted romances, then this is the book for you. I thought the book was easy to follow and enjoyable.

While the story was good, I didn't care for the manner in which it was written, particulary when you reach the court stage where information is taken directly from complete articles of the time and you find yourself reading the same stuff you already knew over and over again. The author provides good detail but holds you till the end to get ALL the facts. I highly recommend this book just because the story seems so unbelievable.

You may begin this book with a preconceived notion, but after reading it, you will probably change your mind! I first heard this story on TV and automatically thought "the Count" was one unstable man. However, the story intrigued me, and I stumbled across this book after some seaching on Amazon. I read the customer reviews and couldn't resist buying it so I could see for myself what made other readers sympathic to the "Count's" actions. Well, my perspective changed after reading this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks there's only one side to every story. Decide for yourself!

Carl von Cosel is a German immigrant working as a technican in a tubercular ward in Key West. He falls in love with a beautiful woman, Elena Milagro Hoyes, who suffers from the disease, and he vows to cure her. His bizarre methods fail and, as fate would have it, Elena dies but Carl's love and devotion are far from over. What follows is one of the most incredible accounts of abnormal psychology, love and obsession you will ever read.

Robbing Elena's body from her grave, Carl takes his "bride" home where he attempts to preserves her from any further deterioration. He lovingly cares for her as his wife and places her in their marriage bed where he continues to consumate passion and love until he is finally caught eight years later. The book is chilling, atrocious and shocking. It compells the reader to go on, not out of enjoyment or pleasure, but from a sense of astonishment that this true-life account of Cosel's life could continue undetected for so many years. It is, however, not a book for the weak or faint of heart. If you can endure the subject matter, it is a book worth reading.

I *thoroughly* enjoyed this book, found it hard to put it down! That someone could actually do something like this and see nothing at all strange about it boggles the mind. I understand moving a grave because of subsidence or whatever, but not taking the occupant home with you!

I HIGHLY recommend this book; this is one of the most fascinating books I've read in awhile. If you enjoy reading about crime, abnormal psychology, etc., this is the book for you. I really enjoyed reading the old newspaper articles, too, the viewpoint of 50 years ago is interesting. The amount of detail in this book was about right, I thought; there could have been more detail but that would have pushed the limits of tastefulness; anything more would have been too much, unsavory.

And just for the record...I want to be cremated. LOL

AMAZING. I am not a big reader, and I was done with this book in a few days. You are not going to put this down very easily. I could not wait to read more every day!

LOVE IT

What intrigued me the most on getting this book was his life with her. The story is very good but the writing is ok. The author jumps into the important parts like they are nothing. For an example (nothing to do with the book) "I bought very nice mattress, very well made and comfortable. I slept in it." In one part he explains his lover for her and literally the next page he dug her up; there's no build up at all. I would say about 80% of the book are his memoirs. You don't know if he's telling the truth or not because he does lie quite a bit. He has a very vivid imagination. It's really not a memorable book. The story is a fantastic and should be made into a movie but the writing just wasn't very well done.

I cannot believe that Gerry Wood wrote the ONLY review on this absolutely wonderful book by Ben Harrison. It must be the most difficult task in the world to write an objective book about necrophelia, but Harrison is the master of the impossible. He creates an unlikely, but very real hero, Count Carl von Cosel, whose passionate love for the beautiful, but doomed, Elena Milagro Hoyos makes her immortal - at least until law enforcement bursts the bubble of imagination that protects both the Count and Elena from the harsh world of reality.

I urge readers to read this intriguing book in unison with Edwin Murphy's "After the Funeral" for an understanding of the importance of the dead to the living.

If Ben Harrison or author Gerry Wood [fellow reviewer and fellow author] wants to contact me I am

Virginia McCullough vmccullough@hotmail.com

This is a quick read but not fulfilling for those of you who saw the story on HBO's "Autopsy 6" and were looking for more. A large majority of the book is excerpts from news articles and Tanzler von Cosel's diary, so the author did little in depth writing. I would have liked to have known more about the childhood of Carl von Cosel and there was just NO real investigation into it. St. Martin's churns out fast true crime stories and doesn't require much investigative reporting in my opinion. I am 32 and have been reading true crime since I was 11, and this publisher turns out some real cheese, including this one.

Key West is the quirkiest city in America -- and this true tale takes the Southernmost city to new heights, or depths, if you view it that way. Ben Harrison, a gifted songwriter, singer and author (and now lawyer -- kind of a reverse John Grisham) has effectively captured this bizarre story. Count Carl von Cosel -- a no-count Count, if there ever was one -- falls in love with a TB-ridden beauty Elena Hoyos. He doesn't let a minor thing like death interrupt his plans to sleep with her forever. His "forever" lasted seven years before his dark side came to light.. A shocking story, absolutely true, that ended in a trial that put Key West in the international spotlight back in the '30s. Harrison interviewed the few remaining survivors knowledgeable of the Count and Elena's "relationship," including family members. Stark photographs -- Elena alive, Elena reconstructed in death by the Count -- make this story of love gone wrong come alive. A fascinating story that's calling for a movie version. Boris Karloff is gone, but Jack Nicholson sure would make for a chilling Count. Movie or not, check out this book. You won't be alone if you find a measure of sympathy and understanding going out toward the grave-robbing Count Carl von Cosel. That's the measure of a good writer...and a damn compelling book. --Gerry Wood, author, Nashville, Tenn.