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"Young women are being discovered dead across the Old Town, all having suffered similarly gruesome ends. In the New Town, medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson. Simpson's patients range from the richest to the poorest of this divided city. His house is like no other, full of visiting luminaries and daring experiments in the new medical frontier of anaesthesia. It is here that Raven meets housemaid Sarah Fisher, who recognises trouble when she sees it and takes an immediate dislike to him. She has all of his intelligence but none of his privileges, in particular his medical education. With each having their own motive to look deeper into these deaths, Raven and Sarah find themselves propelled headlong into the darkest shadows of Edinburgh's underworld, where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to make it out alive."--Amazon.com… (more)
User reviews
I'll start with the pros:
The research is impressive. From the major issues right
Now for the stuff I consider cons:
The writing style becomes tedious, with long-winded narration and repetition. We are beat over the head with certain aspects, such as Sarah's desire to break out of her role as housemaid and Raven's desperation to fit in with the upper class. The repetition lessened my emotional response and dramatically slowed the story's pace.
Given the book's description and marketing, I expected a historical crime story. But the murders are immensely overshadowed by the medical pursuits and relationship dynamics. This is far more a historical drama about doctors and their treatment of patients than it is a crime story. The storyline about the murders is quite thin. Consequently, by the time we get around the the killer and the big reveal, it isn't a surprise at all.
If you enjoy historical drama, then you'll probably love this book. If you're looking for a faster paced historical crime novel, this might not be it.
*I received a copy from the publisher, via Amazon Vine, in exchange for my honest review.*
It was fun, the pace accelerated and there was an interesting array of people, a mixture of classes presented. The only thing that annoyed me is I can quite happily work with male colleagues without wanting to jump them, so why is it any male/female double act always includes a sexual attraction. It's not necessary, really it's not! Despite that, I can see myself looking out book 2.
The story also revolves around a young apprentice doctor and a housemaid determined to rise above her station. They both work with a lauded obstetrician who is at the forefront in using new techniques in the hopes of better survival rates for mothers and babies. Unfortunately, there is someone killing working women - housemaids and prostitutes - who find themselves in the "family way" and looking to remedy the situation. This, and the sketchy backgrounds of a couple of the physicians introduced in the book, make for an intense read.
This is an interesting, well-written book by two authors, Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman, writing under a pseudonym. I will definitely be picking up any other books they collaborate on. Check it out in October when it is available for purchase!
(A preview copy of this book was provided by the publisher.)
I loved this book.
If you like historical fiction (time period rather than people), a mystery, great characters and generally a really fun fast moving read, this is for you.
Centers around Edinburgh 1847, a medical student and a mystery of whose killing
I am surprised I haven’t seen this book promoted anywhere since I believe it’s on the shelves already?
I recommend it.
While reading it, I thought it would be a 5 star rating, but after finishing it, the ending let me down a little, thus the 4 stars. Thank you for the opportunity to review this book.
This is an incredibly detailed novel. The authors (Parry is the pseudonym for a husband and wife writing team) present Victorian Edinburgh, both Old Town and New Town, in all its filthy, class stratified, glory. There is a great deal of medical detail- amputations without anesthesia, complicated childbirths, how homeopathy was killing people. It was a time without many real cures for anything, and medical research could be as sloppy as the doctors sitting around sniffing chloroform to see what it did. It was a frightening time to need medical care! While I appreciated the details, some may find certain scenes too gory, like the childbirth where the child was positioned wrong to come out.
I found myself sunk deeply into the story and the time and place (while I love Victorian London, it was nice to have a change of venue), but the story wandered. The medical history, while fascinating, over powered the crime story- at times I forgot all about the murders. There are a lot of side tracks. If you want a tight murder mystery, this isn’t going to be for you. Personally, I was happy to follow along all the plot lines and side tracks. Four and a half stars.
I found the book a little heavy on the local color and technical descriptions, at the expense of the actual mystery, which resolved itself predictably. Some of the passing comments on feminism clanged a bit anachronistic.
I greatly enjoyed the entwining of fiction and fact; several characters and their historic discoveries walk right out of the medical history books. There is also a delightful map of old Edinburgh in the preliminary pages. There are a number of characters to keep track of and I sometimes wished the chapters weren’t quite so short, but overall this was a memorable and thoughtful mystery to recline with.
Having done some of the touristy things we went
Set in 1840’s Edinburgh, when Edinburgh led the world in the field of medicine, in both medical practices and procedures and also pioneering drugs and anaesthetics.
As well as being a historical medical thriller it also brings to life Dr Simpson who was a real, pioneering figure of the time. Wanting to find better drugs and anaesthetics for his patients we get some great scenes of the research done by these medical practitioners of old which included nights spent with some of the city’s top surgeons sitting round the dinner table sampling various substances looking to find the perfect anaesthetic!!
Dr Simpson makes his discovery of chloroform following some of these sampling sessions 😂
The plot is simply brilliant full of twists and turns, and some great characters, especially Sarah and Raven. They stole the show for me. Will Raven is a young medical student recently apprenticed to Dr Simpson and Sarah, a housemaid for Dr Simpson who has her own ambitions to work in medicine herself, despite their being little opportunity to do so for those born the ‘inferior sex’ as well as her social status.
When a couple of young women are found dead in similar suspicious circumstances, Sarah and Raven take it upon themselves to investigate the deaths as they both fear a more unscrupulous doctor operating illegally and naturally their investigations lead them into a whole host of trouble!
The medical reality in 1847 is horrifically compelling with some fairly narly procedures described throughout the book but they haven’t just been thrown in for a gross out factor, they serve a purpose and bring the story further to life.
Blending a historical tale with an intriguing mystery and even a little splash of romance this book really does have something for everyone.
If you are a fan of historical fiction or maybe interested in medical procedures and their histories you really don’t want to miss this book. I will go as far as to say that this is by far, hands down, the best historical fiction book you will read this year!!
And now for the cherry on top of the cake – It’s the first in a new series 😍 The only downside to that is the wait for the sequel to hit the shelves 😭
I’m already looking forward to it and can’t wait!!
And if you need an even bigger cherry on top to read this book, well apparently there are already rumours flying around that it is set to become a tv series starring Benedict Cumberbatch!! 🙀
The Way of All Flesh was published today 30th Aug 18 and you can grab a copy now
The mystery is in a medical setting, and some of the treatments and descriptions were quite gruesome and brutal. That was hard for me to read. But the experiments with the newly used ether and chloroform were interesting. Quite a nice mystery if you can set aside your empathy.
A historical crime novel interwoven with medical mysteries, my kind of novel!
The characters were well written. Sarah was my favorite, strong , independent, inquisitive. The romance wasn't over the top, which I appreciated.
I enjoyed reading about this
I hope to read more from these authors in the future.
When the story begins,
Before her death, Evie had made a desperate plea to Will for money. He didn’t know what it was for, but having few resources of his own, he borrowed from a less-than-savory money lender to help her. The night before he was to begin his apprenticeship, goons working for the money lender caught up with him on the street and cut his face to show they were serious about getting repaid.
Dr. Simpson takes Will along with him on the many emergency calls he receives, and has Will administer ether to patients whose families allow it. Some don’t; there was a great deal of prejudice at the time against anesthesia, mostly from religious quarters. As Will recapitulated their objections for his friend Henry, a surgical intern:
“Pain in labour is natural, a manifestation of the life force, an ordinance from the Almighty and therefore painless childbirth is unnatural and improper. Under the influence of anaesthesia, some women have been heard to use obscene and disgusting language - words that they should never have had the opportunity to hear - which of course means that it is wrong ever to employ it.”
At any rate, ether had its dangers, and Dr. Simpson was ever on the lookout for a safer method to produce a reversible insensibility during surgery.
Sarah Fisher was a housemaid at the Simpson’s and also assisted with Dr. Simpson’s clinic. At first she found Will arrogant - albeit admittedly good-looking - but hoped he would eventually learn that she could be a valuable asset to him. Indeed, he does; Sarah is very bright and capable.
Nevertheless, Sarah is constantly told it is only appropriate for a man to do certain things.
Speaking of her male peers, Sarah mused:
“Given the same chance, she was confident she would excel over any of them, so it stung when all they saw was a housemaid.”
She thought Will, too, exhibited “the male trait of believing the world revolved around them, usually because it did.”
The women in the Simpson household have accepted the hegemony of men, telling Sarah that “a woman’s God-given role is to be a wife and mother.” Thus, Sarah noted, women were “encouraged to fuss over fripperies as they concerned themselves with how they might adorn themselves the better to please men.” At the same time, they were excoriated for employing these same fripperies to "tempt" men to engage in “sinful” behavior.
Before long, the bodies other women - mostly from the lower class, were discovered in the same contorted throes of death as Evie had suffered. Sarah and Will began to work together to solve the mystery of what was happening.
The authors conclude with a Historical Note, in which they state that many of the characters and incidents depicted are based on real events and real people, and they provide examples.
Discussion: Much of the plot turns on two medical controversies swirling at the time; as indicated above, one involved the use of anesthesia during surgery - especially during childbirth - and the other involved the supervision of women’s bodies by men. Alas, over 170 years later, in August 2019, I came across this in an article:
"Women’s bodies are one of the biggest political battlegrounds of our time. What should in many ways be personal – a woman’s body – is instead political. The assault ranges from the recent clampdown on family planning in the United States (and its global gag rule prohibiting funding for international family-planning organisations that discuss or offer abortion), to new repressive restrictions on clothing, including ‘burqa bans’, or new laws in a growing number of European countries that aim to abolish women’s ability to monetise their bodies. Everyone, it seems, has a view on what women should or shouldn’t be doing with their own bodies."
Moreover, the article continues:
"Still, today, almost one in two pregnancies globally are not intended, and more than 200 million women worldwide who would like to control their fertility have no access to birth-control technology. . . . In the US, the assault on family planning includes headline-grabbing changes to abortion law in certain states, renewed offensives on Planned Parenthood, an organisation that provides birth control and sexual health services for millions of the poorest women in the US . . . .”
It should be noted that Ambrose Parry is the pseudonym for the married couple Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman. Brookmyre has written over twenty novels for which he has won a number of awards, and Dr. Haetzman is a consultant anesthetist. The information provided on the authors explained that Dr. Haetzman uncovered the material for this novel while doing research for her Master’s degree in the History of Medicine.
Evaluation: Although there were two authors writing this novel (see Discussion, above), the writing was seamless. The Edinburgh setting appealed to me, as well as the evolution of the main characters. There were a number of twists, and the ending caught me completely by surprise.
It turns out that this book is to be the first in a series, with Benedict Cumberbatch’s production company SunnyMarch already pre-empting the television rights. I’m delighted to hear it; I look forward to returning to these characters as well as to Victorian Edinburgh and the history of medicine.
This isn't particularly deep, the characters are not particularly well-drawn, but it still has an appeal for a summer's day read on the porch.
While it became somewhat obvious who the culprit was, the story was engrossing and the outcome absolutely fitting. I loved the twist at the end. Recommended for those who love historical fiction and can cope with the portrayal of life in the reality of the mid-19th century.
Parry does a great job detailing 1847 Edinburgh and at the medical procedures of that time. You get completely immersed in the descriptions they wrote. It is clearly a well-researched piece of fiction, one that I believe historical fiction and mystery lovers alike will enjoy.
The Victorian era was pretty scary for anyone needing medical help. Doctors didn't undergo much training and, mostly, learned on the job to the detriment of some of their
Interestingly, the author is actually a husband and wife team. Chris Brookmyre has written a numbr of mysteries on his own but I haven't read any of them. Dr. Marisa Haetzman is a consultant anesthetist and it was her research for her master's degree that suggested a book based on the discovery of chloroform.
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