Despite reading this book before publication in August last year, I haven't managed until now to provide feedback (although I have talked about it ). Writer's block? Perhaps. (I'm not really a writer but I can usually string a few sentences and even paragraphs together). For some reason however, despite loving the book I just couldn't seem to find the words to describe how much I liked it. Of course as time goes by, life gets in the way and the writing part slips further down the to do list.

The Way of All Flesh is set in 1847 Edinburgh. The author's name, Ambrose Parry, and the book's cover just seem perfectly suited to the story. It turns out Ambrose Parry is a pseudonym and the book is co-written by the writer Chris Brookmyre and his wife Marisa Haetzman who is a consultant anaesthetist.

This book ticks so many boxes for me: historical crime fiction, medical, gothic, murder mystery, greed, corruption, good storytelling based around real events, likeable characters but with a bit of mystery and depth.

Chris Brookmyre is one of my favourite authors. He's a very good storyteller. I haven't read all his earlier books (yet) but the books I have read, I've enjoyed very much.

The book is set in Edinburgh. I usually like stories that are located in places I know and I'm familiar with Edinburgh.

It's the year 1847, a time when there were significant discoveries in medicine and science, especially in Edinburgh, where reputations and money are to be made. Will Raven is a young medical student with a past that he keeps hidden, living in the Old Town and about to move into the New Town household of the eminent obstetrician Professor James Simpson to embark on his medical apprenticeship. Professor Simpson treats women in both the richest and the poorest parts of the town.

There's a stark contrast between the New Town (rich) and the Old Town (poor) parts of Edinburgh, and there have been a number of young women found in the Old Town having suffered a gruesome end, one of them having been a friend of Will's. I do like a good medical mystery.

The characters are good. Sarah the housemaid is a strong character. She's very intelligent but being female has none of the privileges that Will has (studying medicine) and takes a dislike to him. Will has a bit of a dark past. He does however enlist Sarah's help to try and solve the mystery of who is killing all these young women.

It's a great read and I am so happy that there will be two more Ambrose Parry books, the first of these due out later this year. I feel there is still a lot to learn about Will and Sarah.

Definitely recommended.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author for a copy of this ARC.

A medical thriller set in Victorian Edinburgh - what;'s not to like?!

Definitely recommend this one!!

I was initially interested in reading this book, however my tastes have shifted and I do not think I will be able to get to it now. Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a digital copy!

The Way of All Flesh is a historical medical mystery that if you love any of those genres you're bound to like! From page one the scene of 19th century Edinburgh is represented in glorious details - you can almost smell it. The writers have set up a well rounded and compelling cast of characters, the main been Will Raven, an impoverished medical student and Sarah Fisher, the maid of his mentor Dr Simpson, whose intellect and wit are wasted merely because she is a woman. Murder and intrigue is the name of the game. This is an excellent start to a new series that had me rooted to each and every page.

Edinburgh 1947 and medical student Will Raven has found himself apprenticed to the very famous Dr Simpson. Will is not the usual gentleman... In fact he is quite penniless and owes money to a cutthroat gang who he tries to dodge as he attends procedures with Dr Simpson. At the same time he is convinced there is a murderer targeting prostitutes and housemaids, including someone quite close to him.
Sarah, the very smart and intuitive housemaid to Dr Simpson, works out quickly something is a bit different about Will and they end up sharing information that leads them to become a bit of a team trying to solve the mystery of these (possible) murders.

The character development was fantastic, with Sarah and Will taking their societal roles, but not necessarily in the expected ways. The setting is also really interesting as Dr Simpson (a real historical figure) tries to find something to ease patients pain that is safer and more effective than Ether.

Ambrose Parry is the pen name of a husband and wife team ; crime writer Chris Brookmyre and consultant anaesthetist Dr Marisa Haetzman. This combination is a great one and the book is set up nicely for really interesting storylines in the future. Although not yet shown in Goodreads, I have read articles suggesting this will be a 7-8 book series and that the TV rights have been bought by Benedict Cumberbatch. What fun that will be!

Highly recommended to historical fiction readers who like a bit of mystery and interesting characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a first class historical crime fiction, very well-written and totally engrossing. I was captivated by the detail and the knowledge of the atmosphere and life in Edinburgh in the Victorian times. . I loved everything about this book - the characters, the setting, the writing.... I only wish it was longer as I didn't want it to end.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC,

This was a great historical fiction piece that I enjoyed, but struggled with in places.
I adore history, especially history from a lower class point of view. So this book with a working class female and a up and coming male was great. Rarely do we see historical females not concerned with dates, men and gossip or a historical male charging to war or making women swoon. This book gives us characters with substance and grit - yay.
The back drop is early Victorian Edinburgh, while I'm familiar with Victorian London and England this was my first journey to Victorian Edinburgh. Dark, busy and filled with the colourful people the city itself was as much a character as the people. And what a great character Edinburgh was.
While those are great positives, my struggle came from the medical side of the book. I'm not medically minded, I can just about apply a band aid, so I lost interest when the subject turned to medical talk. Perhaps someone more interested in this would be more invested in the book, but I lost interested here.
My other stumble was the mix of genres. Historical, crime, medicine and mystery just didn't sit well for me or balance well. Too much of a good thing for me and perhaps better suited to a series to mix so much.
However, I did enjoy this book very much.
Grab this book for a long journey, not just to the past. Or curl up for a weekend in Victorian Scotland.

Thank you to Netgalley and Canongate Books for the chance to read and review this book.

For me, the history of science and medicine is a fascinating subject and one that 'Ambrose Parry' captured brilliantly. There was a British TV drama series when I was younger called Bramwell -- set in East London in 1895, where women were not expected to work, or even know about medicine, which one woman was determined to change -- that I loved and this was very reminiscent of that. I enjoyed getting to know the characters, although I struggled to ever feel close to Simpson, perhaps this was deliberate. Raven was an interesting character, although he seemed older than he ultimately turned out to be, particularly compared with Sarah. Initially, there was something that prevented the flow of the story but I think that was just getting used to the style of writing: nothing too out of the ordinary but different to the book I'd read previously and certainly different subject matter. The English was perfect as far as I was concerned. I'd seen the ending coming, or at least its general theme, but it was well-written and I'd not anticipated all of the details. I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of the interview with the husband and wife team authors at the end of the book. I would be happy to read the next in the series.

I should love this - I’m a big Chris Brookmyre fan, I love historical fiction and Edinburgh, but it didn’t come alive for me. The plot was too slow and the prose a bit chewy. DNF

. . . . .

Perry had definitely got to grips with the setting of this book - it "feels" very Edinburgh. Unfortunately, the characters were a little flat and the story not quite as exciting as I hoped. Not a bad book, but not spectacular.

Thanks to the publisher and net galley for the chance to review this book.
A well written story and an unusual story line for me. But I did enjoy it and will look out for more from this author.

A great little crime story with tons of history into the bargain...

I think I just learned a lot about the origins of pain relief!

This is a beautifully crafted novel, jam-packed with content and lovely humorous moments with two very likeable protagonists and a suitable number of dodgy ones.

The pacing and structure are excellent, very deft with some rather subtle red herrings and a couple of loose ends not tied up in the hope that we will indeed be visiting the Edinburgh streets of the 1840s again in the near future.

Sarah and Will have quite a healthy dislike of each other on first meeting and this lasts well into the novel until circumstances prevail upon them to trust each other. There then follows a slow and steady developing of their relationship which is both amusing and charming.

Together with very evocative snapshots of the medical profession back then, some utterly heart-breaking, there are regular references to the standing of women in 1800s Britain due to Sarah’s intellect and character being overlooked on numerous occasions just for ‘being female’. These frustrations remind us of many things perhaps we take for granted today. She is a fine example of a person who loves to learn, is curious about everything and knows what she wants, if only she was allowed to go after it.

Not knowing who Ambrose Parry was before reading, I assumed he had been brought up with some very impressive female role models: thanks to an enjoyable question and answer at the end of the book I now know that Ambrose Parry is the writing name of Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman which explains how they got the balance of male and female voices so pitch perfect.

The amount of factual content about what life was like at the time is impressive, especially with regards to anaesthesia, unsurprisingly considering Marisa’s background. But it never overpowers the narrative. Often if an author is an expert on something, we get a glut of facts and descriptions of techniques, people and places in a richness far beyond what we, as laymen, can cope with and it ends up taking you out of the story as you figure out the dense text. Not in ‘The Way Of All Flesh’. The authors have weaved their knowledge across the length of the story with an appreciated lightness of touch, making this so very easy to read.

‘Sarah heard a whistle carried on the wind, and in the middle distance she could see steam rising from the new North Bridge station. The sight of clouds rising from below rather than floating up above was one she might be a long time getting used to.’

This is a cracking crime novel!

The Way of All Flesh is by Ambrose Parry, the writing partnership of novelist Christopher Brookmyre and his wife, consultant anaesthetist Marisa Haetzman. Marisa's profession (and Master's degree in the History of Medicine) is key here as the book is a medical drama, set in Edinburgh in the winter of 1847, and featuring the obstetrician James Young Simpson who pioneered the use of chloroform as anaesthetic.

We are introduced to the Simpson household at 52, Queen Street through medical student Will Raven, live-in apprentice to the great doctor, and a man who may not be all he seems, but Will is on a mission to redeem himself: "to heal, to save, to atone," and with the help of Professor Simpson's headstrong housemaid Sarah - a young woman of common sense, intelligence, perception, and no small knowledge of medical matters, acquired through bookish leanings and assisting at her employer's domestic clinics - he discovers the perpetrator of a string of crimes against women.

Edinburgh itself plays a starring role in the book, with a vivid rendering of the contrast between the New Town and the Old, the one a place of fine broad streets, elegant houses, refinement and grandeur, the other one of cramped dwellings set hugger-mugger down the city's spine between the Castle and Holyrood, home to poverty, crime, and disease. Raven moves easily between the two, from the University and Infirmary on the south side, the taverns and the houses of ill repute, to the order of its newer northern counterpart, with its "rigidity and unbending rules". As he seeks to solve the murder of a prostitute of his acquaintance, so he is at the mercy of his past, both recent and more distant, and risks his personal and professional future. "I have one or two questions, laddie," says Professor Simpson quietly at a crucial point in the story, his understatement pointing up the extraordinary turn of events in which his staff are clearly more than peripherally involved, his presence in itself a bridge between two worlds.

Although the book's central plot is fictitious, it weaves its way through real events, most notably the discovery of chloroform - not in a laboratory but famously around Simpson's Queen Street dinner table with friends and colleagues as guinea pigs - showing Edinburgh's foremost place in the world of medicine, and its immense cultural and scientific significance at that time. But where there is enlightenment so there is also darkness, and while we see the humanitarian side of this great innovator, other baser motives are at work elsewhere in the medical profession, and the contrast is as dramatic as it is fascinating.

This novel is the first of a series with the second book, The Art of Dying, out next year and A Corruption of Blood to follow it in 2021. The writers have established a compelling scenario peopled by solid characters and driven by a finely worked plot, and I look forward to the forthcoming books with great interest.

DNF at 15%.

Ughhhh, I'm so bored reading this book. The main characters (presumably Raven and Sarah?) are boring and unlikable. The plot hasn't even started yet and the writing style doesn't fit with the era. The writing style of the two authors feels like it would fit for a modern day novel, rather than a book set in 1847.

However, if you are a fan of medical history, then you will probably like it, because it is really heavy on that. Probably at the expense of the rest of the book.

This is fantastic read. The characters are vivid and engaging and Scotland in the 1800's is brought to life in exquisite detail. Sarah is a wonderfully forthright and intelligent woman, a welcome change from the stereotypical housemaid of that time. Will is a thoughtful and open-minded individual, despite being young and flawed. The are both the heroes of this novel, equally sharing the narrative and showing the reader that no one person needs to be the protagonist.
I just loved it. Can't wait for the next book.

The Way of All Flesh opens with medical student Will Raven discovering the body of Evie Lawson, a prostitute he’d befriended and had hoped to help. However, when he arrives at her lodgings and finds her dead, he’s ashamed of their connection and, fearing he’ll be implicated in her death, he runs away. Will’s just secured a live-in apprentiship with renowned obstetrician Dr. Simpson and doesn’t want to jeopardise the opportunity.

Before he can arrive at Dr. Simpson’s house, though, Will’s accosted by a couple of thugs sent by Mr. Flint, a moneylender whom Will approached for funds to help Evie. Needless to say, when a badly beaten, injured and dishevelled Will finally arrives to take up his apprentiship, he makes a poor impression on some members of the Simpson household – including the young housemaid, Sarah Fisher.

Intelligent and interested in medicine, once she’s finished her domestic duties Sarah assists at the clinics Dr. Simpson runs from his home. Limited by her class and gender, however, she’s unable to pursue a career in the field and the other domestic staff often tell her she has ideas above her station.

Will initially underestimates Sarah, leading our two protagonists to clash on several occasions. But when the number of deaths around them grows, they put their differences aside to work together to not only discover the truth about what happened to Evie Lawson, but also solve the mystery behind the deaths of several other local women who’ve also died in suspicious circumstances.

Written by husband and wife team Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman under the pen name Ambrose Parry, The Way of All Flesh is historical fiction at its finest.

Set in 19th Century Edinburgh, a city split between the poverty stricken and dark underbelly of the Old Town and the wealthy households of New Town, the authors have done a wonderful job of bringing both the Scottish city, with its cobbled streets and dark alleyways, and medicine of the time, to life. The descriptions of medical procedures won’t be for everyone – particularly those involving difficult births – but as readers we have to remember that the events described were typical of the period, when medical intervention was carried out without the use of anaesthetics, pain relief was in its infancy, and religious leaders argued that women should not receive drugs during childbirth.

Ambitious Will Raven is among to see the potential in ether and chloroform – and the possibility of earning a fortune through easing suffering. His backstory is drip fed to us throughout the novel and as we learn more about him, Will’s motivation for wanting to help women becomes ever more apparent. I also liked Sarah’s character. Driven and fiesty, she isn’t one to let society’s misogyny and her poverty hold her back. It was refreshing to have two main characters that came from impoverished backgrounds; often in historical fiction at least one is from a wealthy background.

Meticulously researched and littered with interesting facts, The Way of All Flesh is a wonderful beginning to a new historical crime fiction series that I have no hesitation in recommending to fans of the genre.

'The Way of All Flesh' was an interesting piece of historical fiction with a great mystery at its heart. It's an adventure through the old streets of Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city, at a crucial point in the development of medical science. There's a nice mixture of fact and fiction, making you wonder just how much of the story really happened and how much was made up for the story.

It was a bit slow and took some effort to get through, but the plot was worth it. I would have loved to see more of the city in the description - the authors resisted the temptation to make old Edinburgh a character in itself, and I think that was a missed opportunity.

This would be a great choice for anyone with even the slightest interest in the history of medicine and thriller/crime mysteries.

I absolutely loved this book!
Recently I' have been finding myself reading more and more historical fiction, usually set in London, and The Way Of All Flesh has found itself amongst my favourites.
I loved the characters, the plot and the setting and I will definitely be reading more from this author!

The medical and historical background to this thriller made for a fascinating read. The knowledge and research of the author was evident, without making the story dry. My only complaint was that some of the twists were very obvious, but it's a small price to pay for such an interesting read.