Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Beloved Poison
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Thomson, Elaine – Di Rollo, Elaine
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.esthomson.co.uk/
CITY: Edinburgh, Scotland
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
http://www.esthomson.co.uk/about-2/ * https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/authors/detail.page?id=yZwUSGAJUOYjy5GvtUM97bAvBH9tXXlmBIrUnQX5ApBUTWtV3Iv81Ymm * http://www.historicalnovels.info/Beloved-Poison.html * http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/novelist-knows-the-pain-of-fleshing-out-a-character-xwg2czlwz
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.:
no2016146691
LCCN Permalink:
https://lccn.loc.gov/no2016146691
HEADING:
Thomson, E. S.
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https://lccn.loc.gov/no2008133708
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PERSONAL
Born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, England; children: two sons.
EDUCATION:University of Edinburgh, Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
University of Edinburgh, lecturer.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Born in Lancashire, England, E. S. Thomson, who also goes by the name Elaine DiRollo, is a historical crime fiction writer living in Edinburgh. In her day job, she is a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, where she earned her Ph.D. in the history of medicine. On her Elaine Thomson Home Page she commented on the intriguing subject of the history of medicine: “The things I read about when I was working on this seemed far too exciting and peculiar to leave to the history books, and so I started writing novels.” Shortlisted for the Saltire First Book Award and the Scottish Arts Council First Book Award, Thomson has written several novels set during Victorian England, British controlled India, and the Great War.
Writing as Elaine di Rollo, she published A Proper Education for Girls in 2010. The story follows separated twin sisters Alice and Lilian Talbot. They lived together under their strict and eccentric father who maintains the Collection, which consists of antiques, inventions, and odd anthropological pieces. After a romantic transgression, Lilian is married off to a sickly missionary on his way to India. Meanwhile, Alice remains at home to tend to elderly aunts, her unhinged father, and the cruel Dr. Cattermole who has devious plans for Alice.
Amid the tension of British rule in India, tomboyish Lilian spends her time in the Indian jungle drawing the flora and fauna, learning the language and customs, and using her husband’s hypochondria to her advantage. When Alice receives a cryptic message from Lilian describing a tiger hunt, Alice knows her sister is in trouble. Both sisters work to find a way to reunite. Writing in Library Journal, Stacey Hayman praised the book for seeing English society transplanted in rural India through Lilian’s eyes and for Talbot’s mania seen through Alice and her independent nature. Hayman said: “This debut is ideal for readers who enjoy unconventional historical fiction.”
Thomson published the 2016 Beloved Poison, part of the “Jem Flockhart Mysteries” series. In 1850s London, St. Saviour’s Infirmary is a ramshackle hospital scheduled for demolition to make room for a railway bridge. At the hospital, the doctors and nurses are equally decrepit, constantly bickering and seething with jealousy and loathing for each other. Enter ambitious Jem Flockhart, who has disguised herself as a man so she can work as assistant apothecary alongside her dying father and carry on a century-old family tradition. She has lived most of her life as a man in the dilapidated hospital.
During the demolition process, the nearby cemetery must be relocated, a task led by the handsome junior architect William Quatermain. In the hospital’s chapel, Jem finds six tiny coffins containing a bloody doll, dried flowers, rags, and cryptic papers lining the coffins. Meanwhile, one of the doctors is found poisoned to death. Jem searches for a connection to all the strange occurrences, especially when one of the coffins has the same date Jem’s mother died giving birth to her. Writing in Publishers Weekly, a reviewer noted that Thomson excels “in evoking the claustrophobic feel of the back alleys Jem must tread in search of the truth.”
Jen Baker commented in Booklist that Thomson “injects a fascinating abundance of unusual period details about medical practice,” and compares the book to Lawrence Goldstone’s The Anatomy of Deception. A Kirkus Reviews Online writer praised the book as “a debut mystery chock full of mysterious doings, riveting historical detail, and so many horrifying anecdotes about the state of medicine in the mid-1800s.” According to Margaret Tomlinson on the Historical Novels Web site, “If some suspension of disbelief is required (mostly relating to Jem’s secret), the novel has enough strengths that most readers will be willing to overlook this.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, September 1, 2016, Jen Baker, review of Beloved Poison.
Library Journal, April 15, 2009, Stacey Hayman, review of A Proper Education for Girls.
Publishers Weekly, August 1, 2016, review of Beloved Poison.
ONLINE
E.S. Thomson Home Page, http://www.esthomson.co.uk (May 1, 2017).
Historical Novels, http://www.historicalnovels.info/ (2016), Margaret Tomlinson, review of Beloved Poison.
Kirkus Reviews Online, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (June 30, 2016), review of Beloved Poison.*
My name is Elaine Thomson. I was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, but I now live in Edinburgh. I have a PhD in the history of medicine. The things I read about when I was working on this seemed far too exciting and peculiar to leave to the history books, and so I started writing novels…
By night I am a writer of historical crime fiction, by day I am a university lecture. Other things I do when I am not writing or up at the university are look after my two sons, read, bake cakes, play scrabble, visit museums and – whenever possible – go to the beach.
My first two novels were published under the name Elaine diRollo. The first of these, The Peachgrowers’ Almanac (Chatto, 2008. Published in paperback as A Proper Education for Girls by Vintage in 2009) was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book Award, the Scottish Arts Council First Book Award and the Guildford Literary Festival First Book Award. My second novel was Bleakly Hall (Chatto 2012 and Vintage 2013). BELOVED POISON is my third novel, my first in crime fiction, and the first book in the Jem Flockhart series.
Dark Asylum
“The lips had been darned closed with six long, black, stitches. Clumsily executed, they gave the face a crude deaths-head appearance, like a child’s drawing scrawled upon a wall…”
147fb892-ba94-449f-b4ff-75cb24f424021851, Angel Meadow Asylum. Dr Rutherford, principal alienist, is found dead, his head bashed in, his ears cut off, his lips and eyes stitched closed. The police direct their attention towards Angel Meadow’s inmates, but to Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain the crime is an act of calculated retribution, rather than of madness.
To discover the truth Jem and Will must pursue the story through the darkest corners of the city – from the depths of a notorious rookery, to the sordid rooms of London’s brothels, the gallows, the graveyard, the convict fleet and then back to the asylum. In a world where guilt and innocence, crime and atonement, madness and reason, are bounded by hypocrisy, ambition and betrayal, Jem and Will soon find themselves caught up in a web of dark secrets and hidden identities.
Beloved Poison
“The object I drew out was dusty and mildewed, and blotched with dark rust-coloured stains. It smelt of time and decay, sour, like old books and parchments. The light from the chapel’s stained glass window blushed red upon it, and upon my hands, as if the thing itself radiated a bloody glow.”
BP US cover
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 fight. Ambition, jealousy and hatred 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.
Six tiny coffins, 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 theatre and the dissecting table to the notorious squalor of Newgate 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 whilst the living are forced to make impossible choices. Murder is the price to be paid for the secrets to be kept.”
BELOVED POISON is published by Constable on 4th March 2016. It is Constable’s lead debut crime fiction title for 2016.
The Peachgrowers Almanac
peachSet in 1857, between England and India, The Peachgrowers’ Almanac (A Proper Education for Girls) is a rollicking novel about feisty women, the devotion of sisters and the Victorian obsession with empire, experiments and photography.
The peachgrowers of the title are twins with a passion for botany. Lilian, in mysterious disgrace, has been married off to a dreary missionary. Alice is left at home, curator to her father’s monstrous collection of artefacts, under the watchful eye of the malevolent Dr Cattermole.
properThe Peachgrowers Almanac is a dazzling debut. Tongue-in-cheek and inventive, comic and horrifying, it illuminates the dark heart of Victorian hypocrisy and selfishness, yet at the same time is engaging, very funny and utterly unputdownable.
The Peachgrowers Almanac was published in paperback in 2009 with the new title ‘A Proper Education for Girls’.
Read Reviews >
Bleakly Hall
bleaklyMonty and Ada are old friends. They worked together on the frontline in Belgium where Monty was a nurse and Ada drove ambulances – like the devil. And now, Bleakly Hall Hydropathic has brought them together again.
Monty has just arrived to look after the gouty residents – there to take the Hall’s curative waters via nozzle, douche and jet – and Ada is the maid and driver. For all those at Bleakly, the end of the Great War has brought changes. Not all of them good.
bleaklypaperMonty has a score to settle with the elusive Captain Foxley; Ada misses her wartime sense of purpose; the Blackwood brothers must reinvigorate Bleakly for a new era; Foxley has his own particular ways of keeping his ghosts at bay. But with the crumbling, rumbling hydropathic threatening to blow it’s top, what will become of those thrown together in it’s bilious embrace.
This wonderfully original novel brings together an irresistible cast of characters – including Bleakly Hall itself – in the wake of one of history’s great tragedies. To powerful effect, it combines fizzing comedy with a deeply moving look at the aftermath of war.
E. S. THOMSON
E. S. Thomson was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire. She has a PhD in the history of medicine and works as a university lecturer in Edinburgh. She was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book Award and the Scottish Arts Council First Book Award. Elaine lives in Edinburgh with her two sons.
4/13/17, 1(24 AM
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Print Marked Items
di Rollo, Elaine. A Proper Education for Girls
Stacey Hayman
Library Journal.
134.7 (Apr. 15, 2009): p82. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2009 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
di Rollo, Elaine. A Proper Education for Girls. Crown. Apr. 2009. c.352p. ISBN 978-0-307-40834-1. $24.95. F
In 1857, twins Alice and Lilian are the only surviving daughters of Edwin Talbot, an extremely eccentric, self- centered man whose pride and joy is The Collection, a jumbled mix of anthropological pieces, naturalist objects, and progressive machines that has taken over the family's large estate. The story begins after Lilian is married off in disgrace to a missionary heading to India, leaving Alice the sole caretaker of The Collection, Mr. Talbot, and the elderly aunts. Told from the sisters' perspective in alternating segments, the story shows each facing challenges to her physical and emotional safety as they work toward their reunion. Seeing English society transplanted in rural India through Lilian's unconventional viewpoint and battling Mr. Talbot's unpredictable, focused mania through Alice's independent nature results in a complete and complex story. This debut is ideal for readers who enjoy unconventional historical fiction peppered with interesting, intelligent characters.--Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH
Hayman, Stacey
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hayman, Stacey. "di Rollo, Elaine. A Proper Education for Girls." Library Journal, 15 Apr. 2009, p. 82. PowerSearch,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA201492045&it=r&asid=243ffb4bc7b1f21b1d8085a761c6d002 Accessed 13 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A201492045
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4/13/17, 1(24 AM
Beloved Poison
Jen Baker
Booklist.
113.1 (Sept. 1, 2016): p52. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Beloved Poison. By Elaine Thomson. Sept. 2016.400p. Pegasus, $25.95 (9781681772141).
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).--Jen Baker
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Baker, Jen. "Beloved Poison." Booklist, 1 Sept. 2016, p. 52. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463755121&it=r&asid=aa680bb2192c72d61c05bae65891a3e1. Accessed 13 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A463755121
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Beloved Poison
Publishers Weekly.
263.31 (Aug. 1, 2016): p48. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Beloved Poison
Elaine Thomson. Pegasus Crime (Norton, dist.), $25.95 (400p) ISBN 978-1-68177-214-1 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
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 bloodstained 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.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Beloved Poison." Publishers Weekly, 1 Aug. 2016, p. 48. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=GPS&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460285669&it=r&asid=f8a61022e77506c138adf942b7a0e049 Accessed 13 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460285669
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Beloved Poison
by Elaine Thomson
by by
reviewed by Margaret Tomlinson
First in a planned series, Beloved Poison is narrated by a young apothecary with a secret which is revealed to readers in the opening pages (I'll try not to spoil the surprise). Jem Flockhart works at London's St. Saviour's Infirmary in the 1850s, an aging medical institution scheduled for demolition to make way for a railway bridge. If the staff resent this government decision, it's nevertheless clear St. Saviour's is in dire need of rebuilding, preferably in a less damp location. The buildings are crumbling; odors of graveyard, sewer and sickness pervade the site; and the recovery rate of surgery patients is abysmal.
Jem reluctantly befriends Will Quartermain, a lowly junior architect who arrives to organize and empty the graveyard so the railway bridge will not be constructed on top of the dead. A discovery the two make together in one of the decaying buildings leads to a rash of murders, which may be related to the long-ago death of Jem's mother. Meanwhile, Jem's father is suffering from an unknown progressive disease that exhausts him and requires Jem to take over most of his responsibilities in the apothecary shop.
Beloved Poison vividly portrays the sad state of mid-nineteenth-century medicine. Though readers with sensitive stomachs may be disgusted by some of the descriptions, these are all too representative of a transitional stage when anatomy - thanks to a recent era's illicit dissections of bodies stolen from graveyards - was fairly well understood, but when germ theory was still in its infancy. Jem practices herbal medicine and reminds us that poisonous plants can be therapeutic in small doses, but also compounds such alarming prescriptions as "blue pills," composed largely of mercury and rose petals, and used for complaints ranging from syphilis to depression. Jem makes a sympathetic narrator, and the mystery is puzzling enough to keep readers entertained. If some suspension of disbelief is required (mostly relating to Jem's secret), the novel has enough strengths that most readers will be willing to overlook this. (2016, 390 pages)
BELOVED POISON
by E.S. Thomson
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KIRKUS REVIEW
The coming demolition of St. Saviour’s Infirmary in Victorian London marks a decisive chapter for a young woman who’s lived her entire life there as a man.
Jem Flockhart has been raised by her apothecary father to follow in his footsteps in the crumbling ruins of the buildings due to be torn down to make way for a railway. It’s been hard to hide her sex from others, and she’s distressed when William Quartermain, the junior architect for the project, has to share her room. Hundreds of bodies have been discovered on the grounds, and it’s Quartermain’s job to remove them all. While she’s showing Quartermain around, they find hidden in the chapel six tiny coffins, each with a doll inside wrapped in bloody cloth, along with bits and pieces of flowers and seeds. Curious about who made them and for what reason, Jem, who’s slowly warming to Quartermain, joins his quest for answers. One person who won’t be able to help is Dr. Bain, who’s been collaborating with Jem on a book about poisons. When Bain is found dead in his home, Jem naturally suspects poison. The suspects include the infirmary’s other doctors, many of whom hated Bain because of professional jealousy or due to his reputation as a womanizer. Jem also worries about her father, who hasn’t been himself, perhaps because his brother is in the final stages of madness. The next to die is the wife of Dr. Catchpole, who was in love with Bain and accused her husband of killing him. Jem is sure she and Quartermain are clever enough to catch the killer, but she’s not prepared for the horrors they will uncover and the extent of the malevolence they must overcome.
A debut mystery chock full of mysterious doings, riveting historical detail, and so many horrifying anecdotes about the state of medicine in the mid-1800s that you can almost feel the evil miasma rising from the pages.
Pub Date: Sept. 15th, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68177-214-1
Page count: 400pp
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: June 30th, 2016
Review: Beloved Poison by E. S. Thomson
ARDI ALSPACH
Beloved Poison by E. S. Thomson is a richly atmospheric Victorian crime novel, set in crumbling 1850s London infirmary, where murder is the price to be paid for secrets kept (Available September 13, 2016).
Beloved Poison by E. S. Thomson is a beautifully dark portrait of Victorian London that I believe Charles Dickens would feel right at home in. The dingy, dismal streets and crumbling infirmary are vividly wrought and provide the perfect backdrop for the sensational murder of a controversial doctor as well as the unraveling of many dark secrets.
The characters are vivid with their colorful and often larger-than-life personalities and feel as if they’ve stepped right off the pages of the penny dreadfuls that were popular during that time. Our narrator Jem Flockhart, for instance, is a woman who has lived her whole life in disguise. Her father has no male heirs and insists that she pretend to be a man so she can inherit his apothecary business after his death. This becomes the least of her concerns, however, when the ancient infirmary that houses the apothecary is slated for demolition, threatening her livelihood.
The events take on a lighter note when she meets and befriends the young architect, Will Quartermain, after he’s sent ahead of his senior colleagues to oversee the removal of the thousands of bodies buried in the infirmary’s cemetery. Together, Will and Jem stumble upon six tiny coffins filled with mysterious effigies and floral remains—and their lives are changed forever.
I had once felt safe at St Saviour’s. Life was always the same for us, circumscribed by ward rounds and prescription making, by the gathering of herbs and the preparation of tinctures, pills and salves. There was comfort in that routine, for all of us, and pleasure in doing it well. How quickly things had changed. People and places I had once regarded with a rather bored familiarity had taken on an unkind aspect. Our world, once so ordered and predictable, now seethed with jealousy, resentment and murderous ambition.
Jem has few friends at the infirmary, whether it's the distance she keeps in order to maintain her disguise or the ugly birthmark that stains her face, the reason is unclear. However, the often ridiculed lethario, Doctor Bain, is one of those friends. Once the coffins are discovered and word gets around the infirmary, Bain offers to help Jem and Will investigate them further to determine what secrets they hold. It’s apparent to Jem that Bain already knows what they mean, but before she’s able to speak to him privately about it, he’s found dead—poisoned in his own home. Can Jem and Will solve the murder before the body count rises?
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and though I felt, at first, that the characters were a little over-the-top, I found myself swept away by the darkly atmospheric crime drama that unfolded before me. I was on the edge of my seat as tension mounted, and I could hardly believe how quickly I sped through 400 pages.
I especially enjoyed the portrayal of Jem’s complicated life. I’ve read a few books lately that deal with women living life as men in order to “fit in” within a predominantly patriarchal society, but I don’t think I’ve encountered the subject portrayed as uniquely as it is in Beloved Poison. In addition to her literal disguise in men’s clothes, Jem also deals with a mask-like port wine birthmark that mars most of her face. Her unusual appearance ads to the penny dreadful-like feel of the novel as the author tackles the subjects of inner and outer beauty and monstrosity in Victorian society, subjects that are very much at the center of the mystery to be solved.
I also enjoyed the complicated relationship she has with Will. It’s clear throughout that the loyalty and friendship between them is genuine, and they bond over mutual feelings of outsiderness that I think resonates with anyone living in the margins of any society. Jem also struggles with sexual attraction toward her childhood friend, Eliza Magorian, and I wish that this relationship and the societal repercussions of alternate sexuality could have been explored further. I felt that it was just glossed over as if it wasn’t as big of a deal in that time period as it might have actually been, historically speaking. Physical appearance has more to do with the reluctance on the narrator’s part than social implications, especially if her true sex were discovered.
Eliza Magorian regarded me over the shaggy heads of her chrysanthemums, and raised an I-told-you-so eyebrow. Then, when Will was not looking, she winked. The blood rushed to my face, my birthmark throbbing in time with the violent beating of my heart. Could she hear it? Did she feel as I did? And yet how could she? How could anyone? Instinctively I put my hand to my eyes, shielding my hideous face from her gaze, and looked away.
With macabre potrayals of anatomy, science, and death, this Dickensian crime novel is not to be missed, especially if you’re missing Showtime’s Penny Dreadful and are looking to fill the loss of such a brilliant series.
Book Review: Dark Asylum, E.S. Thomson (2017)
alisonmoulds / March 28, 2017
This post reviews E.S. Thomson’s Dark Asylum (2017), the latest novel in the Jem Flockhart murder mystery series. For a review of its predecessor, Beloved Poison, click here.
Dark AsylumDark Asylum – the second novel in the Jem Flockhart series – hit bookstores earlier this month. I was privileged to be sent a copy by its publishers (Little, Brown) ahead of the release date and my belated review can only be blamed on a busy month marked by my third-year DPhil upgrade assessment and organising a symposium on the doctor-patient relationship (more on that later). Amidst the work-induced headaches, Dark Asylum provided some much-needed relief, a pleasurable (though rather dark) diversion.
The books are part of a series of neo-Victorian murder mysteries set amidst the labyrinth of 1850s London. The narrator, Jem Flockhart, is a part-time apothecary, part-time amateur detective, who also bears the distinction of being born a woman but living and working as a man. In the first novel, Jem pursues the murderer of a close friend and colleague by unravelling the intrigues of St Saviour’s, a crumbling hospital. The series is informed by Thomson’s background as a medical historian and her ongoing research in this area; the second book takes place within the claustrophobic confines of a lunatic asylum, the drolly named Angel Meadow.
When it comes to depicting lunacy, Thomson draws upon motifs and images that would have been familiar in the Victorian cultural imagination. The narrative oscillates between fear and pity for the afflicted, using them as a source of comedy and horror. As in the previous novel, Jem’s consciousness also shows flashes of twenty-first century sympathies. The story is given greater emotional weight because her father was a patient of the asylum and she fears the onset of hereditary madness within her own mind. Some of Angel Meadow’s inmates are individually characterised, including Edward Eden, the well-to-do heir to a drapery and funeral business, who is shut away due to idiocy, a term once used to denote learning disability. While the narrative could have explored patient experiences in more detail, it suggests that there’s a thin line between sanity and insanity, patients and practitioners. As the plot unravels, it appears that those confined within the walls of the asylum do not necessarily pose the greatest danger, while some characters find themselves incarcerated as their circumstances shift.
Thomson examines Victorian responses to insanity, charting treatments that run the gamut from invasive brain surgery to ‘hygienic’ moral management. She characterises this as a time of both ambition and experimentation in the mental sciences. Once again we’re treated to a host of medical men, whose behaviour ranges from the arrogant to the eccentric. The murder victim, Dr Rutherford, is an authoritarian and unsympathetic physician, with a dark past and preference for murky medical practices. Meanwhile, the free-thinking maverick Dr Golspie self-experiments with hashish in the hope that he might unveil the inner workings of the mind. The clash between the different medical personalities was – once again – brilliantly realised. As someone researching the professional identities of nineteenth-century practitioners, I was particularly delighted by the way in which the novel touched on the peripatetic and precarious nature of medical careers in this period. For instance, one character moves between employment as a ship’s surgeon, prison doctor, and asylum superintendent. Another is a truly self-made man, beginning in the rookeries before installing himself among the established profession.
The narrative draws on an impressive amount of historical research. For instance, Rutherford is portrayed as a keen collector of skulls and death-masks, both of which feed his obsessive passion for phrenology. As the plotline unfolds, it takes its reader from the gallows to the anatomist’s table to a convict ship in a series of unexpected twists. Thomson has researched everything from the medical uses of photography to the conditions of transportation, giving her novel vibrancy rather than verisimilitude perhaps. (Its plot is fiendishly far-fetched after all, in the vein of much detective fiction.)
Thomson has a real knack for drawing lively and memorable figures, such as the elaborately made-up Dr Stiven (suited and booted in the finest Regency attire) and his ward Susan Chance, a supposedly reformed child-murderer from the slums now turned out as a genteel lady. The characterisation also shows plenty of humour. Dr Mothersole is a particularly fantastic creation, a pompous and bombastic physician-cum-philanthropist. He’s a visiting doctor at Angel Meadow and a staunch advocate of ‘hygienic methods of care’, endorsing music and art among the largely uninterested inmates. In his wake trails a beleaguered daughter, Constance, who is expected to dutifully record her father’s wit and wisdom for his biography. There’s a particularly brilliant moment when Mothersole dissects his daughter’s physiological failings to Jem, noting that she’s ‘flat-chested, dull-complexioned’ and that her ‘menses are absent’. The scenes with Mothersole ease some of the narrative tension, providing welcome respite from the darker aspects of the novel, while serving to highlight the peripheral roles given to women.
As with Beloved Poison, the story is decidedly macabre. The novel opens with the discovery of Dr Rutherford’s mangled corpse. He’s found with his head bashed in, a pair of phrenological callipers piercing the skull. His ears are cut off and his eyes and lips sewn shut. The murder is an act both violent and symbolic, signifying vengeance and retribution. From the opening pages onward, the reader needs a strong stomach, for the descriptions are vivid and often horrific.
There’s some particularly troubling material here, with sexual violence featuring prominently in the plot. While the narrative draws strongly on melodramatic and Gothic fiction, these scenes are stark and convincing, the experiences recounted unflinchingly by a survivor. Many critics have rightly questioned the use of rape as a plot device in crime fiction. (To date, ITV’s Broadchurch seems to be aptly handling it in a modern-day context). However, in Dark Asylum it doesn’t feel as though it’s introduced as a lazy dramatic device or as something gratuitous. Instead it’s used to emphasise the systemic exploitation and brutality facing women (particularly those in poverty) in the Victorian city.
In the Jem Flockhart novels, London functions not merely as a backdrop but a character in itself. The narrative introduces us to ominous metropolitan institutions – including the asylum and House of Correction – horrific workplaces like Knight and Day’s blacking factory, Mrs Roseplucker’s garish brothel (or Home for Young Ladies of an Energetic Disposition), and the fictional rookeries, Prior’s Rents, where bare-knuckle boxing takes place in the streets and seamier goings-on behind closed doors. The setting pulsates with life and energy; it seems as though Thomson revels in describing the city’s underbelly, whilst also sympathetically drawing out its depredations. Dark Asylum revisits many of the scenes and characters of Beloved Poison. Those who have read the earlier novel will enjoy these familiar faces and moments of recognition; while they’re not integral to the plot, they give it extra piquancy.
Jem’s gender fluidity seemed more marked in this book in contrast with its prequel. In Beloved Poison, I got the impression that Jem resented the fact her father forced her to live as a man, that she considered it a disguise and identified more strongly as a woman. When I penned the first review, I was concerned with getting Jem’s pronouns right and went for the precedent set by the book’s blurb and interviews with the author: ‘she’. Here, Jem’s self-identification seems less clear. At one point, the narrator comments, ‘I am neither man, nor woman’. In the opening pages, Jem seems to be depicted in terms of traditionally male qualities (rationality, fortitude), while her male companion Will Quartermain is defined by more stereotypically feminine traits. As with the earlier novel, the interrogation of gender identity bubbles below the surface – an undercurrent to the detective plot – but it also speaks to the story’s major theme: the marginalised position of women. Like its predecessor, Dark Asylum explores Jem’s sexuality and sexual awakening, but its treatment here is more peremptory compared with the previous novel, where the object of Jem’s affections plays an important part in the story. Still, her choice of partner here serves as a refreshing character.
This novel uses a dual or split narrative – alongside Jem’s runs that of an (initially) unidentified woman, who (a year after the murder) recounts her shocking life story from within the asylum. The reader is invited to guess which female character is penning the tale and whether she’s the killer. It is a great structural device, for the second narrative functions not just as a confessional but as a compelling story in its own right. In fact, I found this narrative voice stronger and more confident than that of the protagonist. Perhaps this is because its linear quality and purposeful tone gives it a sense of direction, or it might be because Jem’s slippery, self-effacing character tends to undermine her sense of conviction. Yet the narrative also sounded more convincingly or persuasively (neo-)Victorian, whereas Jem’s can come across as incongruous. I found myself flicking through the pages, eager to see when the anonymous narrator would next intrude. The structure provided a sense of momentum, sustaining my interest until the end. Our growing sympathy for the second narrator – who seems to be wrapped up in the murders – also gives the story some welcome moral complexity, but risks detracting from our investment in Jem’s investigation.
In describing Jem’s detective prowess, Thomson peppers the story with several nods to Sherlock Holmes. At one point, Jem demonstrates lightning-fast powers of deduction, extrapolating from minute material details and impressing the befuddled Will with her eagle-eyed observations. (Will – as the trusty sidekick – seems a little spare at times but keeps Jem grounded and humanised.) Jem also exhibits an appetite for ‘the game’. I felt these allusions were unnecessary or miscalculated. Jem’s strength as an amateur detective seems to lie not so much in her ratiocination but rather in her position as the overlooked observer, her knowledge of what it is like to practise concealment and disguise.
If anything, Dark Asylum seems less indebted to Arthur Conan Doyle and more influenced by later detective fiction. The murder takes place following an evening ‘soirée’ in the asylum, in which inmates, colleagues, and friends gather to celebrate the return of its principal physician, Dr Hawkins, and his new wife. The event is a nod to the functions that took place in real-life Victorian lunatic asylums but also seems almost a pastiche of the country-house parties that open many a Golden Age murder mystery. The novel also delivers its readers a designated line-up of suspects – many of whom are not only concealing their identities but their connections with each other. Disguise is an important theme in the novel, and few of the colourful characters are exactly who they seem. The reader can barely begin to anticipate the ways in which their histories interlock, a device which seems to owe as much to the coincidences of Victorian fiction as to the improbable twists of modern-day detective dramas. One disappointment was that, though the narrative runs to over 350 pages, some of the best characters remain a little underused, receding as the tale unravels. Finally, the way Jem frequently oversteps her authority (examining crime scenes and taking evidence with impunity) also seems like a parodic gesture towards maverick detectives of the small screen.
Beloved Poison felt almost like an inadvertent murder mystery, a novel which principally turned on its murky setting (the crumbling hospital) and a dark history inspired by tales of body-snatching. In contrast, Dark Asylum seems like an homage to the detective genre as well as a neo-Victorian tale, though both books showcase the author’s passion for medical history. At the end of Dark Asylum there’s an Author Q&A where Thomson teases the reader with the promise of a third outing for Jem and Will, in the London docks aboard a floating seaman’s hospital. It’s an inventive setting for a writer who clearly enjoys delving into little-known aspects of the Victorian medical world.
Beloved Poison: A Novel
Image of Beloved Poison: A Novel (Jem Flockhart Mysteries)
Author(s):
E. S. Thomson
Release Date:
September 26, 2016
Publisher/Imprint:
Pegasus Books
Pages:
400
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Reviewed by:
D. R. Meredith
“an absorbing read on many levels . . .”
E. S. Thomson’s debut novel, Beloved Poison, introduces a major talent in this gritty historical mystery whose macabre setting sends chills down one’s spine as well as invoking an urge to bathe in a tub of disinfectant, the stronger the better.
St. Saviour’s Infirmary has been sold to the railroad interests in 1850s London. A railway bridge will be built in its place, an example of London’s industrial progress, but not everyone is pleased with the plans for demolition.
Jem Flockhart, along with her father, is a resident apothecary at St. Saviour’s. The dank, crumbling building with its perpetual damp and the sound of rats scrambling about the wards is the only home Jem has ever known, and she dreads leaving and possibly having her secret discovered.
“Oh, yes, I was unique among women. There had been an apothecary named Flockhart at St. Saviour’s Infirmary for over one hundred years and I was set to inherit my father’s kingdom amongst the potions. But it took a man to run that apothecary, and so a man I must be.”
Her secret is endangered when her father directs the junior architect sent by his firm to oversee the unpleasant task of moving the corpses from the Infirmary’s cemetery to share Jem’s room. “My father was sick, that much was clear to anyone. Had his tiredness so befuddled his senses that he no longer knew the difference between appearance and reality?”
The young architect, William Quartermain, “lacked any degree of urban sophistication” in Jem’s judgement, but Will proves to be kind and in the end, a good and loyal friend.
While showing Will around St. Saviour’s , Jem discovers six tiny coffins behind a panel in the Infirmary’s derelict chapel. “Inside each was a handful of dried flowers. Beneath them, a bundle of dirty rags swaddled a tiny human form.”
But they are not human infants but instead figures crudely carved from kindling to resemble infants. Both Will and Jem are repulsed by the grotesque “dolls,” but have no idea what they mean other than indicating some sort of ritual.
She shows the coffins to Dr. Bain, her best friend among the medical staff, and the only one who insists cleanliness in the operating theatre is the best way to save lives. Dr. Bain mutters something to the effect that “it is starting again,” but says nothing more although it is obvious to Jem that the doctor is uneasy.
The disagreements between Dr. Bain and the other doctors over his medical theories add to the tension that infuses the hospital as much as the poisonous air full of coal dust that seeps through the ill-fitting windows. Dr. Graves is particularly dismissive of Bain and envies the regard that Dr. Magorian seems to feel for Bain.
Dr. Catchpole also despises Dr. Bain but not as much for his medical theories as for the fact that Mrs. Catchpole is Bain’s lover. In fact, Mrs. Catchpole is so obsessed by Dr. Bain that she believes they will run away together. She follows him to a brothel and creates a scene aided by Mrs. Magorian and other ladies who read Bible verses to the prostitutes. The scene is humorous in a burlesque fashion.
Dr. Catchpole tries to force his wife away from the brothel, but she escapes into the dark. When Jem next hears of Mrs. Catchpole she is locked in the local asylum. It is the same asylum where her father visits for treatment for the insomnia that threatens to drive him mad.
Jem and Will visit Dr. Bain only to find him dead apparently from drinking bloodroot, a deadly poison. Jem doesn’t believe it. Dr. Bain would never experiment with poisons unless she was there to watch over him. She attends his autopsy, gleefully performed by Dr. Graves, and sees no bloodroot in Bain’s stomach. This isn’t an accidental death or suicide; it is murder.
Jem visits Mrs. Catchpole in the asylum and leaves a jar of salve for a cut on the woman’s head. She suspects that Mrs. Catchpole visited Dr. Bain the night he died. Jem wants to know what the woman saw, but Dr. Catchpole and the Bible-quoting biddies interrupt.
The next morning Mrs. Catchpole is dead. Jem suspects the woman has been poisoned, and the likely means is the salve Jem gave her. Someone added aconite to the salve, or substituted jars.
Next a street boy to whom Dr. Bain entrusted one of the coffins is found in one of the excavations in St. Saviour’s cemetery. Someone is murdering any possible witnesses to Dr. Bain’s murder.
Despite Jem’s belief that she can solve the murders and unravel the riddle of the coffins, her adversary is more clever than she expects. Jem is accused of the three murders and is thrown into Newgate Prison to await a fast trial and a faster hanging.
As fascinating as the characters and as complex as the plot, author Thomson’s descriptive narrative of St. Saviour’s and the medical practices common to the time, as well as a depiction of Victorian London almost overwhelm the story. Her descriptions of the foul conditions under which the poor struggled are nothing less than visceral.
At the same time there is an element of burlesque in the novel. Thomson’s use of names convey an underlying subtext. Mrs. Roseplucker as the pox-ridden madam; Dr. Bain who is the bane of the murder’s existence; Dr. Graves whose patients often end up in early graves; even Dr. Catchpole’s name fits the tall, thin man whose nose sprouts an abundance of hair.
Beloved Poison is an absorbing read on many levels, sure to enthrall readers and leave them anxious for her next book.