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A review by fionayule
Surgeons' Hall by E.S. Thomson
3.0
I did not realise, until I started reading this, that its part of a series where Jem Flockhart investigates.
I was attracted to this mainly due to the title: Surgeon’s Hall is now a museum in Edinburgh, but anyone familiar with its history knows that its linked to the medical anatomists and resurrectionists of Victorian Edinburgh. Not mention the gruesome exhibits still contained in the museum. I knew when I requested this that it was going to be a grisly, dark, Victorian novel. Let’s say I wasn’t disappointed.
For those of you whose stomach churn at the thought of blood and gore, then this novel is not for you. The descriptions of the dissected bodies are not for the squeamish. This however does not detract from this excellent novel.
Whilst visiting the Great Exhibition Jem discovers a severed hand in one of the displays. Fearing a student prank, the path to the owner of the hand leads her to Corvus Hall, anatomy school in London.
What Jem encounters is a wall of silence, seemingly dating back to evens in Surgeons Hall, Edinburgh 30 years before. The investigation is only part of the novel though. Part of the themes is the patriarchal society of Victorian Britain, were “delicate women” were not allowed to practice medicine. Also, more horrifically the attitude of the medical men, and anatomists, to the lower classes, and the procurement of fresh bodies.
Add to this good characters that Jem encounters, the mysterious sisters Silence, Sorrow and Lilith Crowe, and the hilarious Mrs Roseplucker and Mrs Speedicut this makes an altogether excellent Victorian investigation into the goings on in an Anatomy School.
Its not for the squeamish though.
I was attracted to this mainly due to the title: Surgeon’s Hall is now a museum in Edinburgh, but anyone familiar with its history knows that its linked to the medical anatomists and resurrectionists of Victorian Edinburgh. Not mention the gruesome exhibits still contained in the museum. I knew when I requested this that it was going to be a grisly, dark, Victorian novel. Let’s say I wasn’t disappointed.
For those of you whose stomach churn at the thought of blood and gore, then this novel is not for you. The descriptions of the dissected bodies are not for the squeamish. This however does not detract from this excellent novel.
Whilst visiting the Great Exhibition Jem discovers a severed hand in one of the displays. Fearing a student prank, the path to the owner of the hand leads her to Corvus Hall, anatomy school in London.
What Jem encounters is a wall of silence, seemingly dating back to evens in Surgeons Hall, Edinburgh 30 years before. The investigation is only part of the novel though. Part of the themes is the patriarchal society of Victorian Britain, were “delicate women” were not allowed to practice medicine. Also, more horrifically the attitude of the medical men, and anatomists, to the lower classes, and the procurement of fresh bodies.
Add to this good characters that Jem encounters, the mysterious sisters Silence, Sorrow and Lilith Crowe, and the hilarious Mrs Roseplucker and Mrs Speedicut this makes an altogether excellent Victorian investigation into the goings on in an Anatomy School.
Its not for the squeamish though.