Surgeon-dentist Louis Bertrand arrives in Sydney with gleaming instruments, impeccable manners and a reputation polished to perfection. To polite society, he is a man of science and sophistication bringing the advances in modern dentistry to the colonies. But beneath the veneer lies something far darker.
When Bertrand falls for Ellen, the elegant wife of a prominent banker, desire quickly turns into obsession. What follows is a spiral of delusion and depravity – a feverish descent into madness and the most bizarre behaviour that plays out in plain sight. The eventual crime of passion is merely the grim punctuation mark at the end of a tale so twisted, so flagrant, it could only have unfolded right under the noses of respectable society.
Based on true events that scandalised nineteenth-century Sydney, The Mesmeriser is a chilling portrait of the man they called The Mad Dentist of Wynyard Square. It's a story of vanity, lust and the thin line between brilliance and insanity – a case where murder may be the least shocking of the perpetrator's crimes.
