The Way of All Flesh

August 27, 2018
Set in Edinburgh in 1847, this captivating series launch from the pseudonymous Parry (the husband-wife writing team of Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman) introduces 20-year-old Will Raven, a medical student apprenticed to James Simpson, a revered professor of midwifery. The evening before Will is to assume his new duties, he calls on a prostitute he’s befriended, Evie Lawson, in her garret room. There he finds her cold body, horribly contorted in her bedsheets. The bodies of other young women soon turn up in the same distressing condition as Evie’s. Will joins forces with Simpson’s resourceful housemaid, Sarah Fisher, to discover who’s responsible. Parry provides a fascinating look at how medicine was practiced at a period when anesthetics were still not widely used or understood, as well as certain things that have changed little over time: mansplaining, the subservience expected of women of any social class, and religious leaders demanding their God-given right to control reproductive health. Readers will eagerly await the sequel. Agent: Sophie Scard, United Agents (U.K.).

September 15, 2018
Ambrose Parry (a pseudonym for the husband-and-wife team of crime novelist Christopher Brookmyre and consulting anesthetist Marisa Haetzman) debuts the first in a twisty and fast-paced Victorian mystery series, set in 1847 Edinburgh. This riveting medical drama is focused on the early use of anesthetics. Although not understanding why he is chosen over other candidates, Will Raven takes an assistant's position with Dr. Simpson, a specialist in difficult births. In grueling detail, Raven learns why anesthetization is so desperately needed in childbirth and surgery. Discovering the proper narcotising dose of ether or chloroform, we learn, was largely a matter of chance, resulting in the death of some patients. When a young prostitute dies horribly, and then more women die similarly, Raven suspects poisoning, and the search for answers leads back to his colleagues. While covering these issues, along with class discrimination and women's rights, Parry still fits in a grimly entertaining mystery along with a tantalizing hint of romance between Will and housemaid Sarah. Fans of medical mysteries set in the nineteenth century may also enjoy Lawrence Goldstone's The Anatomy of Deception (2008) and E. S. Thomson's Beloved Poison (2016).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from October 1, 2018

From the first attention-getting sentence to the supremely satisfying ending, Parry's (married writing duo Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman) first novel in a new mystery series, set in Victorian Edinburgh, gallops along a trail littered with corpses, medical history, and ill-gotten gains. Will Raven, medical apprentice to anesthesia pioneer Dr. James Simpson, uncovers a connection among the gruesome deaths of young women in the city. Aided by Simpson's maid, Sarah Fisher, who is struggling against the barriers of class and gender in 1847 medicine, Will seeks the murderer at risk to himself and Sarah. Parry is particularly adept at creating memorable characters in the compassionate and progressive Simpson, impetuous but principled Raven, and intelligent and feisty Sarah, not to mention the perfectly psychopathic villain. VERDICT This compelling debut captures the essence of Victorian language, depicting Edinburgh, awash in both vice and virtue, vividly. Aficionados of Victorian crime novels will savor this tasty start to a new series and anxiously await the next entry. For fans of Anne Perry's Victorian mysteries and Caleb Carr's The Alienist. [See "Editors' Fall Picks," LJ 8/18.]--Barbara Clark-Greene, Westerly, RI

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