Beloved Poison

Pegasus Books

Beloved Poison
E.S. Thomson
2016

The Summary
"Set in a crumbling 1850s London infirmary, a richly atmospheric Victorian crime novel where murder is the price to be paid for secrets kept.

"Ramshackle and crumbling, trapped in the past and resisting the future, St. Saviour's Infirmary awaits demolition.  Within its stinking wards and cramped corridors, the doctors bicker and backstab.  Ambition, jealousy, and loathing seethe beneath the veneer of professional courtesy.  Always an outsider, and with a secret of her own to hide, apothecary Jem Flockhart observes everything but says nothing.

"And then six tiny coffins are uncovered, inside each a handful of dried flowers and a bundle of mouldering rags.  When Jem comes across these strange relics hidden inside the infirmary's old chapel, her quest to understand their meaning prises open a long-forgotten past--with fatal consequences.

"In a trail that leads from the bloody world of the operating room and the dissecting table to the notorious squalor of Newgate Prison and the gallows, Jem's adversary proves to be both powerful and ruthless.  As St. Saviour's destruction draws near, the dead are unearthed from their graves while the living are forced to make impossible choices.  And murder is the price to be paid for secrets kept."

The Good
When I picked up Beloved Poison, I read the blurb on the back of the book written by Janet Ellis, author of The Butcher's Hook.  It said:

"Beloved Poison is a marvellous, vivid book with a thoughtful, engaging protagonist at its center--and a fascinating story to tell.  It's immaculately researched and breathtakingly dark.  Elain Thomson's descriptive powers are so great that I was surprised to see twenty-first century London rather than grimy, smelly St. Savior's around me when I--eventually--looked up from its pages."

I felt a familiar jolt of recognition that told me this would be a good book--nay, a great book.  And I was right.

Richly atmospheric, as the book jacket promises, Beloved Poison is a wonderfully descriptive novel that plumbs the depths of London's dark heart.  It sheds light on a horrifyingly brutal series of murders that will rock the denizens of St. Saviour's to their core, tearing back the veil on the social conditions of the poor and highlighting the grim realities of 19th century medical science.  Secrets, lies, and murder will abound.  It's all very horrible.

And yet I enjoyed it.  I enjoyed it very much.

Jem is one of the more intriguing characters I've read.  She's daughter to St. Saviour's apothecary, but she's been raised as his son--and no one, except a very few who may have their suspicions, knows of her identity.  She keeps her hair cut short, she walks and speaks as a man might, she wears clothes as a man would wear.  She's been given a startling taste of independence and, yet, she knows she would be condemned for her abnormal behavior.

Jem is a thoughtful, insightful narrator.  She's conflicted, she's intelligent, and she's unique for her ability to understand the minds of both women and men--as she has lived as both in her lifetime.  She's absolutely fascinating, and I was eager to learn more about her.  In my own way, I grew to love her and her story.  I couldn't wait to read more.

Although her investigation takes center stage, I found myself just as curious about her and her world as the identity of the killers.  Jem, like the coffins she discovers in the old chapel, is a puzzle.  She's complicated, yes, but I liked that Jem had so many layers to her character.  I liked that she was so continuously conflicted by her identity and her struggles as she straddled the world of both men and women.

As you read, you discover she must keep her gender a secret:  she hides behind her marvelously dark birthmark and a caustic wit, she masks any touch of femininity in her character, she learns to act as a man might and treat others as a man would.  She grapples daily with her own doubts and fears, facing the somber reality of Victorian social expectations and her unconventional upbringing.  She's often left wondering whether she's been ruined for her "unnatural" habits--or has she been given an unexpected taste of independence?

I loved it.  I loved the whole book.

The Bad
No complaints.

The Ugly
Although I loved this book, I did not love the violence or carnage or gore.  Or the sexual abuse and exploitation.  Or the callous disregard for human life.  Or, you know, the general uncleanliness practiced by medical professionals of the day.

Moreover, it's quite distressing to read about a man having his leg amputated without any anesthetic or hearing, in detail, about a necropsy. Or, and here's a familiar scene, watching a man inject himself with syphilis.  I remember witnessing something similar in The Anatomist's Apprentice by Tessa Harris and, you'd think, I'd be used to it by now.

But, no, it's no less jarring in Beloved Poison.