I’ve already posted about Christopher Brookmyre and my favourite character of his, the journalist, Jack Parlabane, and I think he is a top-class Scottish writer despite some of his books possibly being for a younger audience than me. However, he also writes, along with his wife, Marisa Haetzman, under the pseudonym of Ambrose Parry. My wife introduced me to them through her book club and, while, so far, they have only written three books under the Parry name, I have become a big fan. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll like them too but they fall under the broad heading of detective fiction so I think it is worth introducing them to you, if you haven’t heard of them, or reviewing them, if you have.
To provide a bit of background, Marisa is a consultant anaesthetist and that, along with the gift for writing which is clearly in the family, is where the subject matter for her books and her characters come from. The main character in the three books the pair have written so far, and which are set in the middle of the nineteenth century, is a young medical student called Will Raven and, in the first book, ‘The Way of All Flesh’, he is about to start an apprenticeship in Edinburgh as a surgeon under the renowned surgeon and obstetrician, Sir James Young Simpson. As I’m sure you know, Sir James was a significant figure in the history of medicine and he was the first physician to demonstrate the anaesthetic properties of chloroform on humans and to popularise its use. So, we can see where Marisa’s interest in the subject matter of the books came from!
So, that’s all fine but where on earth does that fit into the detective fiction genre and why am I reviewing the books and recommending them in this post? Well, although he is a trainee surgeon, Will Raven is characterised as a bit of a detective and finds himself faced with all sorts of problems to resolve, most of which find him in serious difficulties with all sorts of criminal characters. Fortunately, he has somespecial skills! He is assisted in his investigations by Sarah Fisher, a housemaid in Dr Simpson’s household who is a very capable lady with aspirations to become a doctor herself, despite the many obstacles which women faced at that time. There are a variety of other characters which are introduced to us in the first book and who reappear in the other two books.
So that’s a brief introduction and the link will help to give you a bit more background but what do I find appealing about them and why am I recommending them to you? Well, first of all, the characters are interesting and well described so you get to know them pretty quickly and the plots are good, solid detective material despite the main characters not immediately appearing to fit into the detective mould. Having said that, I find that is very often the case and, if you read a lot of the authors I write about, many of them are nothing like your bog-standard cop of the Rebus or Lucas Davenport type. In fact, with the best will in the world, although they are police, they are not necessarily stereotypical cops either! In addition, to the characters being interesting and perhaps a bit quirky, though, I find the historical aspect interesting as well and I like the combination of fictional characters along with real people in a very similar way to C J Sansom’s Shardlake novels. It is also interesting for me that the books are set in my home town city of Edinburgh some hundred and seventy years ago!
The three books we have seen so far in the series are ’The Way of all Flesh’, ‘The Art of Dying’ and ‘A Corruption of Blood’ and they can all be read on a stand-alone basis although, as always, I would suggest reading them in order. In fact, due to the historical nature of the material, it is probably more advisable than is usually the case. Overall, I think the series is really good and I can recommend all three books to you. I think it is really impressive to see how Chris Brookmyre, and his wife, of course, can be so versatile in their writing and imagination! Give them a try and let me know what you think of them, please.