About the Book
1854 marks the dawn of a scientific age. Queen Victoria delivers a healthy heir after receiving chloroform during labour. Florence Nightingale makes headlines as she leads a troop of middle-class women out into the war zones as nurses. In Edinburgh, we see Henry Littlejohn appointed as the city’s police surgeon, dubbing himself as the ‘medical detective’, investigating sudden deaths – whether accidental or intentional.
Never has there been a time where people have been so enthralled by possibilities of science, but this appetite for the amazing is also being fed by a new generation of showmen and magicians, whose invention and ingenuity leave the public often unable to distinguish between the wonders of technology and the art of illusion.
Several mesmeric hospitals pop up in Edinburgh, claiming remarkable cures and offering egalitarian training for men and women. While the medical establishment remains sceptical, Dr James Young Simpson has an open mind, dabbling in seances to give this niche study a fair chance. Having faced discrimination from the medical field on the basis of gender, Sarah Fisher sees the hospitals as a place for opportunity.
Great danger lies in the shadowlands between science and superstition, between genuine medical progress and cynical quackery, thus setting the stage for a grand and deadly illusion.
Format: eARC (416 pages) Publisher: Canongate
Publication date: 15th June 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction
Find Voices of the Dead (Raven, Fisher and Simpson #4) on Goodreads
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My Review
Voices of the Dead is the fourth book in the authors’ Raven, Fisher and Simpson series of historical crime mysteries set in late nineteenth century Edinburgh. I’ve read all the previous books in the series – The Way of All Flesh, The Art of Dying and A Corruption of Blood – but I think this may be the best one yet. Voices of the Dead can be read as a standalone but you would miss out on the way the authors have developed the main characters and the relationships between them over the course of the series.
One of the things I like about the books is how the authors incorporate medical advances of the period, often the subject of controversy, into what are skilfully plotted, exciting crime mysteries. In this case, it’s the potential use of mesmerism to cure medical conditions.
Will Raven and Sarah Fisher are great characters with things in common, such as tragedy in their pasts, but also complementary qualities. Sarah is logical and practical, whereas Will is more the man of action. Their teasing, at times precariously close to intimate, relationship has been one of the joys of the series.
They both face moral dilemmas at some point in the book. Sarah is forced to consider whether her desire to embrace mesmerism as a path to achieving her ambition to be a doctor is blinding her to possible flaws in the claims of its efficacy. ‘Was her own desire to be of significance affecting her judgment? Was she craving being taken seriously to such an extent that she was losing perspective?’ I felt her frustration and the unfairness of her abilities not being recognised because of her sex.
Meanwhile Will finds himself having to choose between achieving his personal ambitions and his conscience. And, as before, he remains haunted by the violence of his past. As one character observes, ‘I have seldom seen a man with so many ghosts about him, You are surrounded by the dead.’ Yet now, as a husband and father, Will has even more reason to fear that legacy.
The book sees the return of some characters from previous books, a few in very different guises. I always think it shows skill to make a reader feel sympathy for a character who has serious flaws, but the authors manage to do it here to great effect. As befits a plot that involves the question of what is real and what is illusion, there are some great sleights of hand and misdirections. In the final chapters the action moves from gentle simmer to conflagration, in a neat echo of the prologue. There’s a tantalising sense of jeopardy and, at various points, I’m sure I won’t be alone in thinking, I really wouldn’t do that if I was you.
Voices of the Dead is an ingenious and absorbing historical crime mystery, and a splendid addition to the series. And, Ambrose Parry, what teases you are with that ending! Don’t make us wait too long for the next one.
I received a digital review copy courtesy of Canongate via NetGalley.
In three words: Clever, intriguing, suspenseful
Try something similar: The Unquiet Heart by Kaite Welsh
About the Authors
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 CWA Historical Dagger in 2022.
Connect with Ambrose Parry
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The announcement of the winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023 on 15th June 2023 at the Borders Book Festival – These Days by Lucy Caldwell – was the final stage in a process that began in August last year when submissions opened.
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