IRRESTISTIBLE IMPULSE. A True Story of Blood and Money

Hardback. To Monica Zumsteg, a modest California beauty, it seemed like a fairy tale come true. The quiet, handsome Englishman who rode in on a gleaming motorcycle, who swept her off her feet, and who politely asked her father for her hand in marriage, turned out to be one of the richest men in the world. He is an heir to the billion-dollar fortune of the Vesteys, Britain's second-wealthiest family after the royals. At first, her life in England is idyllic. The newly-weds settle into a sprawling manor house in the countryside. The Vesty Trust picks up all the expenses. Monika is thrown into a world of wealth and aristocracy beyond her imagination. But what began as a storybook romance soon becomes an unstoppable horror. Her husband Michael Telling, is sly, deceitful, and wildly erratic. She makes excuses for his lies and his disappearances. In fits of jealousy, he rips apart their home and threatens Monika with knives and guns. A diabetic, he sends himself into insulin shock in a desperate plea to keep her from leaving. Monika discovers that Michael spent much of his privileged childhood in a psychiatric hospital, and she can't resist trying to help him. Despite her efforts, as the terror in her life increases, she turns to alcohol. Monika and Michael are on a fatal collision course that neither seems able to escape. A vivid Hitchcockian account of what became one of England's most celebrated and disturbing criminal cases. Illus. 305pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true-crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. in f. dw.