Hugh Desmond?

[Jim]

Does anyone here know the name Hugh Desmond?

Desmond was one of the pseudonyms of Kathleen Lindsay, who--by various accounts--helped herself a little too freely to other people's published work in preparing her own novels. (According to the Guinness Book of Records, she wrote 904 books under eleven pen names, beating out even the prolific John Creasey.) Georgette Heyer nearly took her to court over material plagiarized from her romantic novels, and Alastair MacLean was apparently another victim.

Here's an online review of A Pact with the Devil :
>> Convoluted plot involves a Satanist who has hypnotized his wife into submission. When he learns of an extramarital affair, he manages to 'psychically' murder her while she is traveling on a train and he is miles away. Rest of the story is devoted to an absurd revenge plot by the Satanist to frame the wife's lover for a series of gruesome murders. (This plot is hatched five years after the death of his wife, by the way.) Once again using his sinister powers of mesmerism and psychic will power, the Satanist manages to manipulate his dupe into committing murders all without his knowledge and with no memory of the acts committed afterwards. A Scotland Yard officer, Supt. Alan Fraser (Desmond's series detective) goes undercover to investigate the crimes. The black mass/Satanism/astral projection portions seem lifted right out of Dennis Wheatley's novels. The descriptions of these occult elements are highly similar to passages in The Devil Rides Out, Strange Conflict, and The Ka of Gifford Hillary. <<

I'm also suspicious of a novel of "his" titled The Fuehrer Dies...