Voices of the Dead, Ambrose Parry
‘Ambrose Parry’ is a pseudonym for a husband-and-wife team, Christopher Brookmyre and Marisa Haezman. This book is billed as the fourth in the Raven and Fisher series, which is set in nineteenth century Edinburgh. I enjoyed the first three but didn’t think this one was quite as good as the others. Dr Will Raven, a good doctor but beset by problems from a violent past, now works for Dr Simpson (the chloroform man) and hopes to specialise in obstetrics. Sarah Fisher has been disappointed in her ambition to become a doctor and she also works for Simpson. As the book begins, Raven is not a happy man. His two-year-old-son seems permanently angry and screaming. His wife Eugenie is discontented; pregnant again and wanting Raven to set up his own practice with help from her father, which he is unwilling to accept.
This book is all about deception and transformations. The prologue describes a murder which at first seems to have no connection to later events. Raven is yet again drawn into a murder case when body parts are found in various parts of the city. How to identify the victims? Kimble is a drunken magician turned medium, who is knowingly tricking people into believing he can contact the dead for them. Sarah is drawn to Dr Malham, an American aiming to set up a practice using mesmerism with his business partner, Mr Somerville. She thinks that mesmerism may be a way into medicine for her and turns out to be good at it. (The book is set in 1853, when Victorians were very interested in mesmerism. Charles Dickens was fascinated by it and was a natural, once mesmerising his own wife.) When Malham gives a public demonstration in which he appears to extract a tumour from a sick man with no sign of a wound, it causes a sensation and, not surprisingly, scepticism amongst doctors. Sarah is disappointed, seeing Malham now as another Kimble.
Neither Malham nor Somerville is the man they seem to be and Raven worries about Sarah’s friendship with Somerville. Yet again, his past connections are catching up with him. As the book races to a dangerous and exciting close, it picks up a lot and the reader is wondering who will be exposed and who might be murdered. Will it be Raven to the rescue again? I found I really wanted to know. I recommend reading these books in order.
The book is published by Canongate and will be out on June 15th. I read it thanks to NetGalley.