Review: Voices Of The Dead, by Ambrose Parry

Blurb

EDINBURGH, 1853.
In a city of science, discovery can be deadly . . .

In a time of unprecedented scientific discovery, the public’s appetite for
wonder has seen a resurgence of interest in mesmerism, spiritualism and
other unexplained phenomena.#

Dr Will Raven is wary of the shadowlands that lie between progress and
quackery, but Sarah Fisher can’t afford to be so picky. Frustrated in her
medical ambitions, she sees opportunity in a new therapeutic field not already closed off to women.

Raven has enough on his hands as it is. Body parts have been found at
Surgeons’ Hall, and they’re not anatomy specimens. In a city still haunted by the crimes of Burke and Hare, he is tasked with heading off a scandal.
When further human remains are found, Raven is able to identify a prime
suspect, and the hunt is on before he kills again.

Unfortunately, the individual he seeks happens to be an accomplished actor, a man of a thousand faces and a renowned master of disguise.

With the lines between science and spectacle dangerously blurred, the stage is set for a grand and deadly illusion . . .

My Review

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this novel and to Anne for organising this tour.

My copy arrived on the first Saturday in June. It was a lovely day, so I sat in the garden and read for a few hours. Then I got overheated and hungry, so I came in for a rest and to do some work. I got back to reading the book the same evening and finished it just before midnight. At 401 pages, this is a decent sized book. I think I spent about hours reading it.

I was really engrossed by the story. I’m thought I’d read another of the books in this series, I certainly recognised the author pseudonym when the email came through, but I checked and I actually haven’t. I think I’m going to have to get the first three books because I loved the characters and the setting.

The medical establishment of Edinburgh is a seething hotbed of jealousy and competition – between physicians and surgeons, between surgeons and obstetricians, between medical practitioners and the quacks. In to this mess comes Dr Malham, a mesmerist and medical doctor from New York, who sets up in Edinburgh and encourages interest in mesmerism. He’s making a bit of a stir.

Meanwhile, a foot is found in the College of Surgeons. This isn’t unexpected, since they study anatomy at the College. Except, the foot doesn’t belong to any of the official cadavers and it was found in a professor’s cupboard covered in a blanket. This starts an investigation by Dr Will Raven and the assistant police surgeon, Dr Henry Littlejohn. As discreetly as possible.

Which is fine until Raven is asked by an old enemy, Gregor, to come with him to a murder scene. Gregor works for Flint, a money lender who uses violence to make sure he gets his money back. Raven has to call in Henry, who then has to call in the local police. The murder scene is in the flat of Lawrence Butters and his wife. There’s a lot of blood and not much else – other than a foot and ankle. Does it match the one found at the College of Surgeons?

People assume Lawrence Butters murdered his wife Lydia, and set out to find him. Someone is writing inflammatory pamphlets, winding up the people of Edinburgh into a fear frenzy. But nothing is as it seems.

Sarah Fisher, the nurse at Simpson and Raven’s practice, wants to be a doctor, but can’t because women aren’t allowed to train as doctors. She becomes involved with the mesmerists and meets the man financing it all, Mr Somerville. She develops a friendship with him and helps to establish the Institute of Mesmerism, while learning to be a mesmerist.

But again, no-one is who they seem to be.

Raven and Sarah are old friends. Except he thinks she is being irrational by being interested in hypnosis as a treatment for some conditions, and she thinks he’s being stubborn and closed minded by not considering the potential of hypnotism.

There is a medium, Kimble, who gets involved in all of this when Raven and Simpson decide to expose him at his own show. Eventually, Raven and Kimble get to know each other, and Kimble helps solve the case in his own way, as well as helping Raven deal with his own problems.

I recognised some of the inspiring historical events – the murder of Dr Parkman in 1849 at Harvard, the death and atomisation of Charles Byrne, a man with gigantism, the murders of Burke and Hare, the quackery of mesmerism and spiritualism that took off in the mid-nineteenth century, and ‘spiritual surgery’.

There is still a problem with quackery and medical imposters these days, and it got worse during the pandemic. Medical quackery has resulted in the deaths of cancer patients who think celery juice will cure them, kids have died from preventable diseases because their parents preferred dead kids to autistic kids. Vaccines don’t cause Autism, by the way. It’s genetic!

---

Author Biography:

Ambrose Parry is the penname for two authors – the internationally
bestselling and multi-award-winning Chris Brookmyre and consultant
anaesthetist of twenty years’ experience, Dr Marisa Haetzman. Inspired by the gory details Haetzman uncovered during her History of Medicine degree, the couple teamed up to write a series of historical crime thrillers, featuring the darkest of Victorian Edinburgh’s secrets. They are married and live in Scotland. The Way of All Flesh, The Art of Dying and A Corruption of Blood were shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. A Corruption of Blood was shortlisted for the CWAHistorical Dagger in 2022. @ambroseparry