A Lady in Shadows

September 15, 2017
A second round of turn-of-the-last-century detection for aspiring French pathologist Madeleine Karno (Dr. Death, 2015) that lays on horrors of every sort they could imagine in 1894.On the very day that the president of the Third Republic is stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist, the city of Varbourg is home to a much more modest homicide: the slashing of prostitute Rosalba Lombardi. Those who think her death was a hate crime directed in revenge against the Italian community don't include Madeleine, whose sharp observations lead her to a theory of the murder that is as novel as it is unpleasant and set her on a collision course with a journalist whose headline screams: "JACK THE RIPPER IN VARBOURG!" Soon, however, that theory is moot, for Madeleine, whose application to the medical school at the University of Varbourg has been denied because she might prove a distraction to her male cohort, is accepted as a student by Adrian Althauser, a docent in physiology who, unlike every other member of the faculty, has expressed a particular interest in taking on female students. Madeleine works hard, answering questions smartly in class, vivisecting a squid without fainting (which is more than can be said of her lab partner), and braving the indifference of her mentor and the contempt of Erich Falchenberg, a former lover of her fiance, August Dreyfuss, professor of parasitology at Heidelberg University. Her reward, alas, is to learn that Althauser's plans for her are very different indeed from what she'd expected--and then to learn that a second prostitute whom she'd befriended has been killed at exactly the same time she was learning the truth about Althauser. Less detection than horror, less horror than plain old revulsion. But Kaaberbol deploys strategically limited period detail with a surgical precision as great as her heroine's to set her struggles in a context of anti-female bias past and present.

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Starred review from October 30, 2017
Kaaberbøl’s exhilarating sequel to 2015’s Doctor Death finds budding forensic pathologist Madeleine Karno shaken by the discovery of a woman’s mutilated body in a coal yard, the corpse’s abdomen sliced open. As the streets of Varbourg, France, erupt in violence following the assassination of President Marie François Sadi Carnot by an Italian anarchist in 1894, Karno, who’s also just been accepted as a physiology student at the local university, and with the Commissaire des Morts attempt to first identify the victim, then solve the woman’s brutal murder. Newspapers jump on the similarities to the murders of London’s Jack the Ripper, and fear ripples through the community at the thought that France might have its own Ripper. Karno eventually identifies the victim as Rosalba Lombardi, one of the city’s numerous prostitutes. As her clandestine investigation continues, Karno discovers disturbing facts about the murder that bring up female rights issues as relevant then as they are today. Kaaberbøl has created a genuinely tough, empathetic female heroine in an era when women were meant to be seen and not heard. Agent: Lars Ringhof, Lars Ringhof Agency (Denmark).

December 1, 2017
Beginning with a tense bathtub scene, Kaaberbl's sequel to Doctor Death (2015) is gripping from start to finish. In 1894 France, the country is rioting in the wake of the assassination of President Marie Francois Sadi Carnot. Then the body of a prostitute is discovered with curious abdominal incisions, suggesting a Jack the Ripper-style assault. Madeleine Karno is enlisted to help as a forensic pathologist and soon finds herself drawn into the French underworld, risking her safety and reputation to find the murderer. Meanwhile, Madeleine attempts to deal with a scandal surrounding her fiance and her tenuous position as the first female student at the University of Varbourg, where she has become a favorite of her teacher, Dr. Althauser, whounbeknownst to Madeleineis busy trying to implement a mad scheme to create a superior race. Kaaberbl not only masterfully entwines the central mystery with the various subplots, but she also peoples her story with a cast of engaging characters, from Madeleine through the sympathetic supporting cast and the morally complex villains. Fans of the series will be anxiously awaiting the next installment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)