A livery dinner at Apothecaries’ Hall ends in disaster when an outbreak of poisoning kills one of the Society’s members. Because John Rawlings belongs to the profession himself, Sir John Fielding places him in an unusually sensitive position: he can question fellow apothecaries and understand the medicines involved, but the investigation threatens the reputation of the institution that defines his livelihood.
Rawlings finds disputes within the Society, a suspicious visit to the victim’s house and the anger of a bereaved parent who blames an apothecary’s misdiagnosis for a son’s death. The case turns the medical world of Georgian London into a closed circle of possible motives, where professional pride, grievance and access to dangerous substances make almost anyone capable of converting a formal dinner into deliberate murder.
