[Review] E.S. Thomson: 'Surgeons' Hall'

'Surgeons' Hall' is the fourth installment of E.S. Thomson's series, featuring apothecary Jem Flockhart and architect Will Quartermain. Its action mostly takes place in a private dissection school called Corvus Hall.

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I know death intimately. We often walked the same path and I am well acquainted with the smell of death. On too many occasions I opened a door or window and was met by the somewhat sweetish smell of human decay. I always knew at once that death was awaiting me. Even now, years later, I still imagine that I smell that odour again. It forever haunts me.

Imagine then a mansion where countless corpses are stored and dissected in times when refrigeration was still unknown. The bodies were simply stored in the coolest room available. Imagine walking through the corridors and feeling the soles of your shoes stick to the floor because hygiene wasn't yet connected to health and prevention of disease. Blood and other bodily fluids were under every foot. Imagine the stench in such places.

I know that the stench of death will seep into the floorboards, into the walls, and into the ceilings. No amount of cleansing will ever get rid of that smell. If temperatures rise on a warm afternoon or if you light a fire on a cold evening, the smell of death will enter your nostrils. The only remedy is to demolish such a place.

The mystery in 'Surgeons' Hall' starts with the discovery of a severed hand, seemingly perfectly dissected, at the Great Exhibition of 1851. This lugubrious find leads our intrepid duo to Dr. Crowe's newly opened school in Corvus Hall. A body is found that is unaccounted for. Its skin appears removed from the face to make identification impossible. And it's one hand short.

What is the significance of that lone dissected hand? Secrets seal the lips of many suspects. Who is protecting who? And why?

I know, I can't heap enough praise on Elaine Thomson and her novels. You must read - or rather experience - them yourself. Steeped in detail, Thomson captures the dark history of medicine perfectly with her seemingly effortless prose.

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