Why a Booktrail?
1847: Edinburgh – City of Medicine, Money and Murder.
The Way of All Flesh
What you need to know before your trail
Young women are being discovered dead across the Old Town, all having suffered similarly gruesome ends. In the New Town, medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson.
Simpson’s patients range from the richest to the poorest of this divided city. His house is like no other, full of visiting luminaries and daring experiments in the new medical frontier of anaesthesia. It is here that Raven meets housemaid Sarah Fisher, who recognises trouble when she sees it and takes an immediate dislike to him. She has all of Raven’s intelligence but none of his privileges, in particular his medical education.
With each having their own motive to look deeper into these deaths, Raven and Sarah find themselves propelled headlong into the darkest shadows of Edinburgh’s underworld, where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to make it out alive.
Locations
Reset- Scotland - Edinburgh
- A: Canongate Kirk
- B: Cowgate
- C: Infirmary St
- D: Queen St
- E: North Bridge
- F: Leith Walk
- G: Leith Docks
Travel Guide
Edinburgh
You are immediately sucked into a world of vice, dark deeds and a ‘Fetid labyrinth’ that was Edinburgh in 1847.
The old Town
Lots of local flavour – turns out the North Bridge was the windiest part of the city even back then! However , it’s the oldest and most gothic parts of the city which come alive – from the Grassmarket to Canongate, the old town really comes into its own and is the star of the very gothic and cloaked in black, show.
This is the Edinburgh of shadows, of dark corners and even darker characters. The city plays a frightening role in itself and even the Water of Leith, once a den of inequity comes alive on the smutty, dusty page. Alive with historical intrigue and deadly delight, Edinburgh has never seemed so gothically fascinating!
The New Town
The new part of town with the posh townhouses and the smart offices. Dr Simpson lives in the rather grand Queen Street and it’s where Raven later moves to. This is a city undergoing great change and this new part of town represents the wealth and prosperity that some have.
Streetview Maps
A) Edinburgh - Canongate
B) Edinburgh - Cowgate
D) Edinburgh - Queen Street
F) Edinburgh -Leith Docks
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
This has to be one of the most gothic visits to Edinburgh town
I ever did make in my life. Ooh that sounds like the start of a rhyme doesn’t it? The cover opened and what a cover it is by the way! and immediately I was sucked into a world of vice, dark deeds and a ‘Fetid labyrinth’ that was Edinburgh in 1847.
Novels like this are thrilling if done right and boy was this done right. Evoking sights, sounds and smells of a time gone by, with a little bit of history thrown in such as the “Irish invasion from Glasgow”
I loved this from the first page. A fully immersive novel with a great plot and mysterious threads throughout. It’s extremely vivid read and I hear it’s the first of many. Bring them on! Missing Raven and co already.
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