Dr. Mortimer and the Aldgate Mystery
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Set amid the clip and clatter of hansom cabs and the popping of the gaslights, this intriguing mystery introduces Dr. James Mortimer, the man who brought the case of the Hound of the Baskervilles to the attention of Sherlock Holmes. Here, Dr. Mortimer tells a tale of how he came across his second and most challenging case ever.
In 1890, the young Dr. Mortimer is numb with grief over the death of his wife and decides to close his own practice and begin a new life for himself. He winds up in London and is asked to fill in for another doctor with an emergency. Dr. Mortimer agrees and his last call of the day brings him to an address in Aldgate where he meets the captivating Lavinia Nancarrow. Intrigued and worried by the overbearing solicitude of the girl's guardian who keeps her a virtual prisoner, Mortimer determines to discover the reasons behind Lavinia's confinement.
Engagingly absent-minded but incessantly curious and observant, Mortimer is aided in his effort by his formidable consort, the liberated Dr. Violet Branscombe. Together they unravel a mystery as dark and sinister as the East End Alleys of Victorian London.
A retired Calcutta merchant with a guilty secret, a decadent fin-de-siecle artist who frequents an anarchist café in Whitechapel and a seemingly impossible murder are the key pieces in the puzzle, which Mortimer soon finds himself trying to solve, in Gerard Williams's Dr. Mortimer and the Aldgate Mystery.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
You don't have to be a Sherlock Holmes fan to enjoy this absorbing debut novel about Dr. James Mortimer, of The Hound of the Baskervilles fame, and the start of his career as a crime-solver. After the death of his wife, the bereaved Mortimer considers devoting the rest of his days to his hobby of archeology, but his friend Dr. Watson persuades him to take a position as a substitute physician instead. One of Mortimer's first patients is the beautiful, high-strung Lavinia Nancarrow, the ward of a wealthy merchant and former India nabob who's been holding her essentially captive in his home in Aldgate. After joining the staff of Dr. Violet Branscombe's clinic for abused women in Whitechapel, Mortimer and his new colleague team up to investigate the mystery of Lavinia's confinement. In what turns out to be an intriguing case of murder and romance, Williams brings London's East End and India under the Raj vividly to life, while nicely dramatizing the condition of women of different classes in the late Victorian era. A translator by profession, Williams is particularly good at language and his narrative is peppered (but not overseasoned) with obscure and obsolete words (e.g., armigerous, mofussil, larrikin) that should send those who like to expand their vocabularies to their (unabridged) dictionaries. Too many Holmes pastiches or spinoffs fail to do full justice to Conan Doyle's original creation; this is a rare and honorable exception, sure to delight historical mystery readers as well.
