The Fiend in Human - Hardcover

Gray, John M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679311734 ISBN 13: 9780679311737

Publisher: Random House Canada, 2003

Synopsis

Already an international rights sensation, this dazzling thriller stalks and illuminates the dark, disintegrating walkways of Victorian London.

It’s 1852, and the ranks of the London poor have doubled. In the swollen shadow of the great St. Giles Rookery, fallen women attract perfumed dandies of the West End in a vicious circle of venality, vanity and vice.

Edmund Whitty, correspondent for The Falcon, the city’s second-best sensational tabloid, writes whatever will stimulate the reader, delay his (increasingly physical) creditors, and supply him with the alcohol and opiates required to see him through the day. His most recent triumph was to supply a name to the fiend in human form who has murdered God knows how many prostitutes with a white silk scarf: Chokee Bill. To the correspondent’s satisfaction, Chokee Bill incited a garrotting panic that paralyzed the business of London -- until the arrest of one William Ryan. Normality has returned. The hangman, Mr. Calcraft, as dusty and dreary as death itself, awaits.

Broke again and in search of crisp copy, Whitty makes a shocking but not altogether surprising discovery: the white-scarf slayings have continued. When he endeavours to find the real Chokee Bill, he is greeted with emphatic hostility, both offcial and unoffcial.

This Dickensian tale offers galvanizing suspense and an evocative and witty vision of life in Victorian London -- in which the hallmark of a gentleman is perfection without, putrefaction within, and the hallmark of a lady is to have snared a gentleman.

About this title

Review

In The Fiend in Human, Edmund Whitty, a dissolute journalist, writes columns on grisly crimes and the latest public hangings for The Falcon, a muckraking tabloid in Victorian London. Whitty is addicted to a variety of potions: gin, snuff, laudanum and Acker's Chlorodine (opium, marijuana and cocaine in alcohol). His latest series focuses on William Ryan, whom he has dubbed Chokee Bill: murderer of five women, lover of the stately Mrs Marlowe and presently an inmate in Coldbath Fields prison awaiting his appointment with the noose. But when murders continue in Chokee Bill's signature style, Whitty must return to the streets to investigate.

A successful dramatist (Billy Bishop Goes to War), John MacLachlan Gray fills his novel with waggish Victorian-era dialogue, as in the exchange between Whitty and his editor:

"You make an appalling sight, Edmund. Consumptive and syphilitic at the same time."
"In actual fact I have been contemplating the water cure--nothing like it to tone the system."
"Water would be a novelty in your system, I should think."
"London water is notorious. Gives you typhus."
"You'll use any excuse to deteriorate."
"Deterioration is relative. We all deteriorate."
"Not with your enthusiasm."

A pair of Oxford swells also plays an important role in this finely built novel, as well as a family from the lower orders that helps Whitty in his investigations of the slippery Ryan. Gray's depictions of seedy, contaminated London are enough to make the reader itch. Altogether, Gray has written a fine thriller that explores the power and limits of the press, as well as the depths of the human beast. --Mark Frutkin, Amazon.ca

Review

"A streetsmart period thriller brilliantly re-imagining Victorian London with great precision and a fine and mordant zest. Wonderfully engaging throughout. Bill Gibson" (Bill Gibson)

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Canada
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0679311734
• ISBN 13: 9780679311737
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352