Skin and Bone

August 29, 2016
In Blake’s richly imagined fourth 18th-century historical set in Preston, England (after 2015’s The Hidden Man), a dead newborn turns up in a tanner’s noxious “skin yard.” Titus Cragg, the redoubtable coroner, won’t cease trying to find out whether the baby was murdered and the identity of the parents—even though it seems as if half the town is desperate to stop him. Assisted by the excitable physician Luke Fidelis, Cragg learns that the infant was indeed killed. But despite all obstacles—including a truly terrifying (and suspicious) fire, mid-inquest—Cragg also comes to believe that the place the corpse was found may be key to a cabal’s plan to drive out the despised tanners and transform the town. The mystery’s strengths are the author’s skillful command of a large cast of characters, all of them nuanced and original, and his enterprising use of Georgian-era methods of investigating a homicide when examining a corpse was itself problematic and the powerful could legally demolish those who posed too many uncomfortable questions.

The discovery of a baby's body in a tanner's pit has the 18th-century English town of Preston in an uproar.Coroner Titus Cragg, called to the skin yard to examine the body of a newborn, seeks help from his friend Luke Fidelis, a doctor with very advanced opinions for 1743. Fidelis is not home, but Cragg chances to meet the old-fashioned Dr. Harrod, who believes the baby was stillborn. When Fidelis returns, however, his comprehensive exam makes it clear the baby was murdered by someone who stuck a pointed object through its ear into the brain. Many townspeople assume that Kathy Brock, a local girl with a loose reputation, is the mother and killer. Cragg is not so sure. Meanwhile, several wealthy members of the town are secretly hatching a scheme to get rid of the skin yard and make the local swamp into a much larger docking area than the town currently has. When the inn where Cragg is holding the inquest is burned, most likely by an arsonist, the crowd is lucky to escape. Lady Rickaby, whom Cragg saves from the fire, lodges a complaint against him because he saw her nether regions when he had to cut off her hoops to fit her through the window. The mayor, who dislikes Cragg, is happy to use the incident as an excuse to remove Cragg as coroner. While Cragg plans an appeal to the Earl of Derby to get reinstated, he and Fidelis look for motives among the high- and lowborn of the town, uncover a lot of nasty secrets, and come to a satisfying conclusion. Blake's meticulous research makes his latest account of crime and medicine in the mid-1700s (The Hidden Man, 2015, etc.) a pleasure to read even though mystery mavens will have no trouble unmasking the killer. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2016

When a dead newborn is discovered in a tanning pit near the town of Preston in 1743 Lancashire, the local merchants see a chance to get rid of the despised tanners and build a dock to improve the community's economy. Lawyer/coroner Titus Craig's inquiry into the baby's death throws a wrench into their plans until Craig is charged with lewdness. Then Abraham Scroop, a prominent merchant, dies in what looks like a riding accident, but physician Luke Fidelis determines that the man was murdered in the same manner as the infant: a bodkin shoved into the ear. British art historian Blake's thoroughly researched historical mystery is enhanced by a strong narrative voice and a sense of authenticity. VERDICT Devotees of the late Bruce Alexander's "Sir John Fielding" mysteries will delight in this fourth series outing (after The Hidden Man).

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2016
The fourth in the Cragg and Fidelis series, set in the 1740s in the town of Preston in Lancashire, focuses on the death of a newborn infant. Coroner Titus Cragg is called to the local tannery, a ghastly place of employment for many of Preston's poor, who not only work in the harrowing trade but also are shunned by other citizens because of their work. The central questions for Cragg and his associate in crime solving, Dr. Luke Fidelis, are whether the infant was stillborn, died accidentally, or was murdered. A deliberately set fire at the inquest convinces them that forces are at work to cover up what happened. The descriptions of the dead infant may strike many readers as gratuitously graphic, but the plight of young women with illegitimate children in that era is well drawn, spiking the mystery with compassion for whomever carried the doomed baby. Once again, it's a pleasure to watch Cragg and Fidelis feeling their way through an investigation with rudimentary science but well-honed knowledge of human nature.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)