The Death of Shame

Edinburgh, 1854. Sarah Fisher is helping to finance Will Raven’s growing practice in return for the medical training she still cannot obtain openly. When Annabel Banks disappears after being promised respectable domestic work, Sarah follows the trail into a system that preys on young women and funnels many of them into brothels. Raven is drawn into a second mystery after a prominent man falls from the Scott Monument, forcing him to ask whether the death was suicide and what hidden pressure might have driven a successful public figure to despair.

The two investigations expose the destructive power of Victorian sexual respectability. Women could be exploited and then condemned for the circumstances imposed upon them, while the fear of scandal gave blackmailers leverage over men whose status depended on a spotless public reputation. Parry also draws on a real episode in the life of James Young Simpson, who resisted an attempt to blackmail him over an allegation that he had fathered a child outside his marriage. Against this culture of shame, Sarah’s clandestine medical education becomes part of the same struggle over who is allowed knowledge, independence and a credible public voice.