Set during Europe’s Middle Ages, MASK OF DEATH reexamines and expands upon the classic Edgar Allan Poe Short story “The Masque of the Red Death”. Prince Prospero. his wife, Elizabeth, and Clarinda, Prospero’s younger mistress, already face the real-life horrors of the black plague and widespread famine. Now, add supernatural terrors to that list in the form of “fleshers”—undead creatures who feast on the living – and you have the start of the novel.