The Way of All Flesh

    This is a cracking crime novel!

    The Way of All Flesh is by Ambrose Parry, the writing partnership of novelist Christopher Brookmyre and his wife, consultant anaesthetist Marisa Haetzman. Marisa's profession (and Master's degree in the History of Medicine) is key here as the book is a medical drama, set in Edinburgh in the winter of 1847, and featuring the obstetrician James Young Simpson who pioneered the use of chloroform as anaesthetic.

    We are introduced to the Simpson household at 52, Queen Street through medical student Will Raven, live-in apprentice to the great doctor, and a man who may not be all he seems, but Will is on a mission to redeem himself: "to heal, to save, to atone," and with the help of Professor Simpson's headstrong housemaid Sarah - a young woman of common sense, intelligence, perception, and no small knowledge of medical matters, acquired through bookish leanings and assisting at her employer's domestic clinics - he discovers the perpetrator of a string of crimes against women.

      Edinburgh itself plays a starring role in the book, with a vivid rendering of the contrast between the New Town and the Old, the one a place of fine broad streets, elegant houses, refinement and grandeur, the other one of cramped dwellings set hugger-mugger down the city's spine between the Castle and Holyrood, home to poverty, crime, and disease. Raven moves easily between the two, from the University and Infirmary on the south side, the taverns and the houses of ill repute, to the order of its newer northern counterpart, with its "rigidity and unbending rules". As he seeks to solve the murder of a prostitute of his acquaintance, so he is at the mercy of his past, both recent and more distant, and risks his personal and professional future. "I have one or two wee questions, laddie," says Professor Simpson quietly at a crucial point in the story, his understatement pointing up the extraordinary turn of events in which his staff are clearly more than peripherally involved, his presence in itself a bridge between two worlds.

    Although the book's central plot is fictitious, it weaves its way through real events, most notably the discovery of chloroform - not in a laboratory but famously around Simpson's Queen Street dinner table with friends and colleagues as guinea pigs - showing Edinburgh's foremost place in the world of medicine, and its immense cultural and scientific significance at that time. But where there is enlightenment so there is also darkness, and while we see the humanitarian side of this great innovator, other baser motives are at work elsewhere in the medical profession, and the contrast is as dramatic as it is fascinating.

    This novel is the first of a series with the second book, The Art of Dying, out next year and A Corruption of Blood to follow it in 2021. The writers have established a compelling scenario peopled by solid characters and driven by a finely worked plot, and I look forward to the forthcoming books with great interest.

Comments

[Toffeeapple]

You have done it again! These books sound very interesting.

[Cornflower]

I'm glad you think so, Toffeeapple - I enjoyed this one thoroughly and can't wait to see what exploits the authors have in store for Simpson, Will, and Sarah!
I could have written a much longer piece on the book as there is so much of interest that deserves to be covered, but this will suffice for now; I expect certain themes will be developed as the series goes on, and we can perhaps come back to them in due course.

[Dark Puss]

Sounds very good. I think that Simpson was the first person to demonstrate its anaesthetic property on human subjects; another British medical scientist (Glover; educated at Edinburgh University) showed that effect on animals a few years earlier.

[Cornflower]

Yes, there is reference to experiment on animals, though - perhaps for dramatic purposes - that is by Prof. William Gregory.
DP, you may be interested to know that some of the book's 'action' takes place in Danube Street!

[callmemadam]

I thought your description of the plot of this book sounded familiar, looked it up and found that yes, I had read it last June. I can add my recommendation to yours.

[Cornflower]

Glad you liked it too!

[Dark Puss]

Indeed! Happy Bohemian memories. Probably rather safely Upper Middle Class now :-)

[Cornflower]

Was it bohemian then? Colourful!

[Anji Brown]

I am looking forward to reading it. You make it sound so interesting.

[Dark Puss]

Oh yes indeed it was!

[Cornflower]

Glad it appeals, Anji.