Murder by Lamplight

January 15, 2024
McDonough’s run-of-the-mill debut finds a pioneering female physician in Victorian England enmeshed in a murder mystery. A legal loophole allowing doctors with foreign accreditation to practice medicine in England has benefited Julia Lewis, who’s recently returned to London after completing medical school in the United States. She gets a chance to put her training to use when her grandfather, Dr. Andrew Lewis, is unable to fulfill his summons to a gruesome crime scene at a construction site, and Julia takes his place. There she meets Scotland Yard Insp. Richard Tennant, who shows her the corpse of Reverend Tobias Atwater, “a tireless champion of the downtrodden” who’s been found dead with his genitals mutilated. Atwater proves to be the first in a string of savage slayings linked by a punctured balloon concealed in the victims’ clothing, one of which contains a note that casts doubt on Tennant’s arrest and execution of the infamous Railway Killer several years earlier. Terrified that the Railway Killer is still at large and impressed by Julia’s observations in the Atwater case, Tennant recruits her to help him solve the recent murders. McDonough delivers a competent whodunit, but little about the characters or the setting is memorable. Readers intrigued by the premise of a historical mystery centered on a woman physician should check out E.S. Thomson’s Jem Flockhart series for a fresher take. Agent: Jim Donovan, Jim Donovan Literary.

September 13, 2024

On a cold night in November 1866, Dr. Julia Lewis, one of Britain's first practicing women doctors, is called to a grisly crime scene to examine a murder victim. While there, she meets Inspector Richard Tennant, a stoic military veteran with a haunted past. The two get off to a rocky start, as he is clearly unhappy about working with a woman physician. Even so, differences are set aside when another gruesome murder--bearing striking similarities to the first--occurs. Soon, this unlikely duo must work together to track down a sadistic serial killer prowling London's streets, hell-bent on exacting revenge. Insightful and clever, McDonough's stunning debut weaves elements of the cozy mystery into an engrossing historical thriller. Listeners will be captivated by both the riveting mystery and the history lesson on 1860s London, jam-packed with insight into medicine, health, labor, gender, and class dynamics at the time. Narrator Henrietta Meire shines, employing skillful dialogue work to infuse vibrancy into the story's many characters. VERDICT A deliciously atmospheric historical mystery, sure to delight fans of C.S. Harris and Ambrose Parry.--Jennifer Embree

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