The Death of Shame is the fifth outing for doctor Will Raven, and Sarah Fisher – a former housemaid, with medical career aspirations of her own. Of course, being a woman, her path to her ideal job seems nigh on impossible, but she is determined and tenacious.
The series is set in a Victorian Edinburgh so richly described, each novel transports you directly to the scene. You can feel and smell the setting, which makes the horrors faced by Raven and Fisher all the more terrifying.
In The Death of Shame, Raven finds himself involved in investigating suicides of prominent men, who appear to have been blackmailed. One of the suicides is close to home, impacting Raven’s personal life.
Fisher is tasked with locating her niece, who left home to join service in Edinburgh but never arrived. During the investigation, Fisher uncovers the murky trade of young virgin girls for sale, to wealthy and/or powerful men.
In Victorian era Edinburgh, a city leaning strongly towards puritanism, such sins are buried deeply, and bringing them into the light can put the investigators in danger.
I always come away from Ambrose Parry novels having learned a lot, the detailed research that goes into each novel is tightly woven into a pacy and gripping plot that has the reader racing through. There is less coverage of historical medical procedures in this novel, focussing more on society of the time and the investigations, but it’s still a fabulous historical thriller.
The Death Of Shame is out now in paperback.
Many thanks to Ambrose Parry, Canongate Books and Random Things Tours for the gifted copy of the paperback for review.
BLURB
When you are a prisoner of your secrets, the death of shame is the only path to liberty.
Annabel Banks was promised work as a maid with a prestigious Edinburgh family. But on her first day, she’s nowhere to be found. Concerned relatives contact Sarah Fisher to help. Sarah might know her way around the city – its light sides and dark – but soon she’ll discover the plight of dozens of girls ensnared in its many brothels: lured, abused and left ruined in the eyes of the world.
Meanwhile, a prominent society figure throws himself from the Scott Monument. Will Raven is asked to establish whether the death was suicide or if someone else was involved. Drawing upon real historical events, The Death of Shame takes the Raven and Fisher series into a treacherous labyrinth of shame and the pitfalls of a culture obsessed with moral purity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Brookmyre is an internationally bestselling and multi-award-winning author and Dr Marisa Haetzman is a consultant anaesthetist of twenty years’ experience. The couple teamed up to write a series of historical crime thrillers, featuring the darkest of Victorian Edinburgh’s secrets. The Way of All Flesh was a Waterstones Thriller and Scottish Crime Book of the Month, was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Award and shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. The Art of Dying and A Corruption of Blood were shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. A Corruption of Blood was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger in 2022. In 2024, Voices of the Dead was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger and their short story A Spendthrift and the Swallow was shortlisted for the CWA Short Dagger Award.
Leave a Reply