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A review by themerryloner
Murder by Lamplight by Patrice McDonough
4.0
In the winter of 1866, Inspector Tennant calls Dr. Lewis to examine a murder victim. Dr. Julia Lewis surprised the officers at Scotland Yard when she joined the investigation instead of her grandfather, Dr. Andrew Lewis, but later impressed them with her skills.. Especially lead investigator Inspector Richard Tennant. Murder by Lamplight by Patrice McDonough is an excellent debut mystery and is likely to be the start of a new historical mystery series set in Victorian England..
Author Patrice McDonough is a historian and her background may be one reason this book not only tells a compelling story but also shares facts from Victorian England between 1830 to the mid-1860s. We learn about London’s cholera epidemics, life in Britain’s workhouses, STIs in an age before penicillin, the Crimean War, and the lives and rights of women and the LGBTQ community in Victorian England — even members of the upper classes.
Donough’s Dr. Julia Lewis is a heroine in the tradition of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Fighting for her right to practice medicine as a female doctor as much as her right to be her own person even though she’s ‘just’ a woman, she sees this case as another chance to prove that women are just as capable as men. Especially to uptight Inspector Tennant.
Seeming all professional and distant on the outside, Richard Tennant faces his own demons. Coming from an upper-class family that lost some privileges, after serving in the military and the Crimean War, he returns home and joins Scotland Yard to make a living.
As the first part in a possible new series, the author establishes the main characters and sets the tone for upcoming novels. With Julia and Richard both feeling torn between their interest in the other and their chosen life of solitude, it will be interesting to see what the author has in store for them.
I’m a fan of cozy and historical mysteries, and while this book was most definitely not a cozy, it was an intriguing historical mystery and the promising start of a new series. I appreciate the thorough research and the in-depth depiction of the characters. Having enjoyed reading this novel, I recommend it to fellow lovers of historical mysteries set in Victorian London in all its grimy glory.
Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC.
Author Patrice McDonough is a historian and her background may be one reason this book not only tells a compelling story but also shares facts from Victorian England between 1830 to the mid-1860s. We learn about London’s cholera epidemics, life in Britain’s workhouses, STIs in an age before penicillin, the Crimean War, and the lives and rights of women and the LGBTQ community in Victorian England — even members of the upper classes.
Donough’s Dr. Julia Lewis is a heroine in the tradition of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. Fighting for her right to practice medicine as a female doctor as much as her right to be her own person even though she’s ‘just’ a woman, she sees this case as another chance to prove that women are just as capable as men. Especially to uptight Inspector Tennant.
Seeming all professional and distant on the outside, Richard Tennant faces his own demons. Coming from an upper-class family that lost some privileges, after serving in the military and the Crimean War, he returns home and joins Scotland Yard to make a living.
As the first part in a possible new series, the author establishes the main characters and sets the tone for upcoming novels. With Julia and Richard both feeling torn between their interest in the other and their chosen life of solitude, it will be interesting to see what the author has in store for them.
I’m a fan of cozy and historical mysteries, and while this book was most definitely not a cozy, it was an intriguing historical mystery and the promising start of a new series. I appreciate the thorough research and the in-depth depiction of the characters. Having enjoyed reading this novel, I recommend it to fellow lovers of historical mysteries set in Victorian London in all its grimy glory.
Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC.