The Devil's Making: A Victorian Detective Mystery - Softcover

Haldane, Sen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0991907302 ISBN 13: 9780991907304

Publisher: Stone Flower Press, 2023

Synopsis

The first of two 19th century detective mysteries set in lands which were to become parts of Canada.

Victoria, 1869. The ramshackle capital of British Columbia, one of the last colonies in North America, where among European, American and Chinese (known as 'Celestial') settlers vastly outnumbered by native Indians, a few thousand British try to establish the values, noble and ignoble, of what is beginning to be known as the Victorian age.

The body of a man, horribly mutilated, is discovered in the forest. This was Dr McCrory, an American 'alienist' or mad-doctor who was either an innovator in the treatment of mental illness, drawn to practice in the freedom of the colony, or a charlatan whose methods include the most dubious of pseudo-sciences: phrenology, Mesmerism, and sexual-mystical 'magnetation'. Chad Hobbes, fresh from England, is the detective who must solve the crime.

But this is more than a detective story. According to Charles Darwin, the difference between the savage and the civilised person is 'the difference between a wild and a tame animal.' Is this true? Chad faces this question not only in the new territory in which he finds himself, but in himself, and in those he comes to love.

About this title

About the Author

Dr Sean Haldane in his historical and contemporary crime novels draws on his experience as a neuropsychologist in health services and the criminal justice system, first in Canada (Prince Edward Island and British Columbia) then in the UK from 1990 to 2020. From 2012 to 2020 he was in private practice based in London as an expert witness, working about 2/3 with police and crown prosecution services (via the National Crime Agency), and 1/3 with defence lawyers. In police work, he was instructed by and worked with Senior Investigating Officers in cases ranging from murder to Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO), abuse, assaults, and fraud. His assessments were done in police stations, hospitals, law offices, and prisons. His reports assisted the criminal justice system in determining whether the accused had suffered brain damage which affected the capacity to stand trial (fitness to plead) and the question of mens rea (the guilty mind): whether the person knew what he or she was doing while committing a crime. Although Seán Haldanes novels are about fictional events, his close knowledge of crime and of the questions it poses to police and the criminal justice system enables him to stay close to the psychological and practical reality of criminal investigation. Sean Haldane lives in London, UK and in New Brunswick, Canada. He is a UK, Irish, and Canadian citizen.

From the Back Cover

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Edition details

• Publisher: Stone Flower Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0991907302
• ISBN 13: 9780991907304
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 368