Voices of the Dead (Raven and Fisher 4)

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...M.F A SCOTSMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR EDINBURGH, 1853. In a city of science, discovery can be deadly . . . In a time of unprecedented scientific innovation, 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 . . .