WHO WOULD MURDER THE DYING…

London, 1665. Hidden within the growing pile of corpses in his churchyard, Rector Symon Patrick discovers a victim of the pestilence unlike any he has seen before: a young woman with a shorn head, covered in burns, and with pieces of twine delicately tied around each wrist and ankle.

Desperate to discover the culprit, Symon joins a society of eccentric medical men who have gathered to find a cure for the plague. Someone is performing terrible experiments upon the dying, hiding their bodies amongst the hundreds that fill the death carts.

Only Penelope – a new and mysterious addition to Symon’s household – may have the skill to find the killer. Far more than what she appears, she is already on the hunt. But the dark presence that enters the houses of the sick will not stop, and has no mercy…

My thanks to Fiona Willis at Viper Books for the chance to join the blog tour for The Plague Letters.  I reviewed a Netgalley copy of the book which was provided by the publishers.

London is a city in lockdown, it is 1665 and the advice is to restrict movement and stay home. A deadly disease is spreading through the city and there are countless deaths which the medial profession are unable to cure but are frantically trying to find ways to ease suffering. A Plague Society has gained a few notable members but the extent of their success is not apparent and Rector Symon even questions (to himself) what methods they are using to conduct their research.

I mention Symon as he is one of the key players in our tale.  A man of faith and someone that is coming into frequent contact with the dead as the bodies are brought for blessing and burial. In the midst of the bodies arriving at his church there is one girl who has died with her hair cropped off, burns on her body and her hands and ankles bound with twine.

Symon is a man with distractions.  He is being pestered to release some of the corpses which have come to him for burial to the self-proclaimed scientists.  He is also obsessed with a married woman – the Lady Elizabeth.  Her name crops into his sermons and the two have a steady correspondence by letter  Symon travels to visit Elizabeth at her home but finds others also in her company and their relationship seems rather cool in person.

Trying to focus Symon’s attention to the very real problem of missing girls in London is a strange soul – Penelope.  She appears something of an urchin, unkempt, displaced in the city and often subject of sharp comments regarding her appearance.  Yet she manages to make a place for herself in Symon’s household and is doing what she can to make him forget his obsession with Elizabeth and concentrate on the increasing number of bodies which arrive at the church with hair missing and twine binding the hands and ankles.  Penelope is trying to make Symon see that a killer is active in the city but will she have any success in getting him to listen to her warnings?

Through the book the story is punctuated by a wonderful use of city maps which show the spread and devastation of the plague.  This was slighly impacted on my digital copy as the Kindle didn’t reflect the red colouring which grows from map to map showing the increased coverage of the disease.  In a hardback, physical, copy I have no doubt these maps will look glorious. I seldom advocate a perference of physical/digial or audiobook but in this case I make a rare exception and only for aesthetic reasons.

The Plague Letters is a cracking period thriller.  If historical crime is your thing then you absolutely must seek this one out.  As someone who only dabbles with historic stories it took me a little longer than I would have liked to adjust to the narrative style and the (excellent) depiction of 1660’s London life.  Once I was into the rhythm of the language my initial hesitance faded away and I grew into the story as the world built up around me.  I clearly need to read outwith my comfort zone more than I do at present – The Plague Letters was extremely good fun to read with pleasing surprises and more than a few villianous players to raise my suspicions.

The Plague Letters is published by Viper Books and is available in Hardback and Digital verisions.  You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08FNPM7ZC/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0