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Summary
Summary
Ramshackle and crumbling, trapped in the past and resisting the future, St. Saviour's Infirmary awaits demolition. Within its stinking wards and cramped corridors, the doctors bicker and backstab. Ambition, jealousy, and loathing seethe beneath the veneer of professional courtesy. Always an outsider, and with a secret of her own to hide, apothecary Jem Flockhart observes everything but says nothing.And then six tiny coffins are uncovered, inside each a handful of dried flowers and a bundle of mouldering rags. When Jem comes across these strange relics hidden inside the infirmary's old chapel, her quest to understand their meaning prises open a long-forgotten past--with fatal consequences.In a trail that leads from the bloody world of the operating room and the dissecting table to the notorious squalor of Newgate Prison and the gallows, Jem's adversary proves to be both powerful and ruthless. As St. Saviour's destruction draws near, the dead are unearthed from their graves while the living are forced to make impossible choices. And murder is the price to be paid for the secrets to be kept.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Rich atmospherics and a Dickensian portrayal of the underbelly of Victorian London elevate Scottish author Thomson's superb whodunit above most other historical debuts. Jem Flockhart, an apothecary at St. Saviour's Infirmary, has successfully passed herself off as a man in order to work alongside her father, continuing a family tradition in medicine that dates back a century. Meanwhile, the hospital governors have agreed that to sell the property to make way for a railway bridge, which necessitates emptying its graveyard, an unpleasant task delegated to junior architect William Quatermain. And, in the midst of that upheaval, one of the infirmary's doctors is fatally poisoned, a crime that Jem believes is linked to her discovery of six tiny coffins, each containing a blood-stained doll. Some of the coffins are lined with papers with cryptic writing, including a reference to the date Jem's mother died giving birth to her. Thomson excels in evoking the claustrophobic feel of the back alleys Jem must tread in search of the truth. The plot builds to a logical but surprising reveal. Agent: Jenny Brown, Jenny Brown Associates (U.K.). (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Jem Flockhart, assistant apothecary to her dying father, at the crumbling St. Saviour's Infirmary, watches walls and lives disintegrate as an insidious rot takes hold. Demolition looms for the odiferous hospital that's been her lifelong home, while Jem struggles in her roles as peacekeeper and ward manager. Added to her burden are several distressing personal issues, which do offer a wisp of humanity otherwise missing in the story. The reeking hospital, with its backstabbing staff, miserable patients hovering near death, and a graveyard teeming with half-buried corpses, builds a foreboding, nightmarish atmosphere for clandestine experiments and personal vendettas. If not for Will Quartermain's friendship and surprising normalcy (despite his gruesome assignment to empty the graveyard), Jem could never dig out the truth surrounding the murder of the insatiably curious Dr. Bain and the six tiny paper coffins hidden in the chapel. Thomson's sure-handed first novel, set in 1850s London, displays a graphic descriptive style and dark humor similar to D. E. Meredith's The Devil's Ribbon (2011), and injects a fascinating abundance of unusual period details about medical practice, as in Lawrence Goldstone's The Anatomy of Deception (2008).--Baker, Jen Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In 1850s London, Jem Flockhart works as an apothecary at the crumbling St. Saviour's Infirmary, built in 1135. Still, time marches on, and the hospital has been sold to be torn down to build a new railway bridge. Junior architect Will Quartermain is given the unpleasant responsibility of moving the bodies from the graveyard. Teaming up with Jem, with whom he is lodged, he finds six little coffins in the old chapel, each containing a wood puppet and dried flowers. As the two investigate, their discovery will unleash death and destruction and reveal some secrets (including Jem's). -VERDICT Short listed for the Saltire First Book Award and the Scottish Arts Council First Book Award, this outstanding debut historical enthralls with its meticulously researched details of 19th-century hospitals; the result is a dismal portrait of unrelenting bleakness that will make readers grateful to be living in the 21st century. This is Showtime's Penny Dreadful, brought to life! © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.