A Fever of the Blood (Frey & McGray 2)

Author/Guide: Oscar de Muriel

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1889 Only the bravest should venture into Edinburgh and Lancaster when there’s witchery afoot

ISBN: 978-0718179847
Genre: Crime, Ghost/supernatural, Historical

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What you need to know before your trail

Edinburgh – NewYear’s Day 1889. A patient has escaped from the city’s lunatic asylum and a nurse lies dying in a twisted and macabre position. Before the crime, the suspect was seen talking to a girl who had been mute for years, but now won’t talk again. Something strange and very uncomfortable is happening and legendary local Detective ‘Nine-Nails’ McGray and Londoner-in-exile Inspector Ian Frey are the ones on the trail peppered with tales of Black Magic and curses that could keep them from solving the crime.

The psychopath with links to a prominent family in Edinburgh is then tracked down to the heart of 19th century witchery – Pendle hill in Lancashire and what awaits them there could scar them for life, if they ever make it out alive and untainted that is.

Locations

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England
E: Lancaster - Pendle Hill

Travel Guide

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is a dark and foreboding place. It’s dark and dreary and as the novel starts, McGray has been called to the asylum situated in the southernmost extreme of the city across the old town and the “black wilderness” where the shadows taunt and the wind whistles its eerie tune.

“The asylum was indeed agitated: nurses and orderlies ran everywhere and the eerie shouts of countless inmates filled the place like an army of ghouls.”

A murder by a madman is the first of the cases. A nurse lies twisted in an arch of pain with only the numbness of death to calm her. The place is shocking and cold. Madness was a curse in the 19th century, misunderstood and said to be linked to all kinds of dark magic and deeds, curses and a source of witchcraft having taken the minds of its victims.

Pendle Hill

As more crimes are committed, the world of sorcery and witchcraft open up. Strange objects are found at each scene, bodies twisted in disturbing ways and a link to the most chilling place of all – from a madhouse to the shadow of Pendle Hill, home of the infamous Lancashire witches .

“Do you mean…the Pendle Witch’s Pendle Hill?

“These women had let undeniable traces of witchcraft”

The whole atmosphere of the novel merges the supernatural with the misunderstood topic of so called madness and the understanding of witchcraft in the 19th century with its connotations of black magic, curses and their use of fire and spells to curse and protect at the same time. Their way of communicating with each other, the way McGray and Nine Nails work with their prejudice and ignorance of such matters shows the two worlds – one hidden in the shadows in a fascinating world where marigolds represent the flowers of the dead.

Streetview Maps

Edinburgh - the police station is here

Lancaster - Pendle Hill....spooky...

Booktrailer Review

Susan: @thebooktrailer

I loved the first book in the series but this is just something else. What fascinates and excites me about this book is that the author is Mexican, has lived in both Lancaster and Edinburgh and has set a novel in the 1800s blending all of these places and cultures and more. The famous North – South banter is back ‘You sound like a peacock with its balls being squeezed” and McGray and Nine Nails have never disliked each other so much.
The theme is spooky and chilling – witchcraft and sorcery plus supernatural shadows are handled with the deft of a master craftsman. Oscar explains the research he did in the back of the book and how his knowledge and interest in both UK and Mexican culture lent themselves well to this novel. I’d never read a book with so much background before but never once did it read like a tome. This was fresh, exciting and based on myth that we all know a little of, but with added imagination and pizazz.
Oscar can write and then some. The skill in which he crafts each ‘scene’ is astounding and his characters are so well developed and drawn each of them can be seen as you turn the page. The subject of the Pendle witches was imaginatively woven into a story of murder and madness and it was a chilling treat from start to finish. I can’t praise youse highly enough McGray and Nine Nails. With Master Muriel crafting your next act, youse are likely to be on the crime fiction stage for a long while yet.