REVIEW: St. Ulphia’s Dead by Scott Lambridis

ABOUT THE BOOK

Disgraced medical researcher Mirs and his skeptical new supervisor, Jo, arrive on the remote island of St. Ulphia to investigate an outbreak of mass psychosis. The villagers claim they’re being possessed—one by one—by a cannibalistic demon known as the Wendigo. While unraveling the villagers’ strange tales, Mirs and Jo are drawn into a tangle of local politics, mysterious disappearances, and impossible contradictions. When the missing begin to reappear, the boundaries between fact and folklore become dangerously thin. As tensions rise and trust fractures, Mirs and Jo must confront the possibility that the madness around them may not be entirely imagined—or may not be the villagers’ alone. A psychological mystery laced with absurd humor, St. Ulphia’ s Dead explores how trauma warps truth, how isolation breeds belief, and how the most terrifying demons are the ones we conjure for ourselves.

St. Ulphia's Dead by Scott Lambridis. Publication: July 7, 2026

REVIEW by Christina Boyd

In St. Ulphia’s Dead, author Scott Lambridis crafts a haunting and darkly comic psychological mystery set on the remote island of St. Ulphia, where disgraced medical researcher Mirs and his skeptical supervisor Jo investigate an outbreak of apparent mass psychosis. As villagers insist they are being possessed by a cannibalistic demon known as the Wendigo, the investigation spirals into a web of disappearances, fractured loyalties, and unsettling contradictions. While the novel begins at a deliberate pace, it finds its footing midway, building into a tense and increasingly disorienting narrative that becomes difficult to put down.

Lambridis blends absurd humor with meditations on trauma, mortality, and human connection, creating a novel in which certainty dissolves beneath the reader’s feet. Drawing from science fiction, folk horror, and the literary ghost story while retaining the lyrical sensibility of magical realism, St. Ulphia’s Dead transforms the classic detective narrative into something stranger and more psychologically resonant. The deeper the investigation, the less clear the answers become.

Inventive, unsettling, and emotionally incisive, St. Ulphia’s Dead explores how isolation distorts belief, how trauma reshapes truth, and how the most terrifying demons are often the ones we create ourselves. Readers of my blog know this genre is typically not my cup of tea, yet I can easily recommend this inventive novel to fans of Cormac McCarthy, Richard K. Morgan, and Blake Crouch.

Scott Lambridis, author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott Lambridis is a Bellingham, Washington-based writer and neurobiology lover whose fiction explores the strange edges of perception, time, and consciousness. His work has appeared in Slice, Fence, and The Café Irreal, and he earned his MFA from San Francisco State University. He once ran an indie press, toured with a progressive rock band, tended an olive farm, read a book from every country of the world, and wrote his debut novel during his daughter’s naps in France.

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