London, Victorian London is the place and the time is nineteenth century . London, the capital of the mightiest empire on the face of the earth in ushering in the new age of science and technology. New invention and discoveries are the call of the day. One such novelty is Forensics, a new branch of science dealing with examination of cadavers and crime scenes. And this one of the many reasons why the elite class of London is finding it hard to accept and Our protagonist and the purveyor of this science is Prof. Adolphus Hatton , the chief forensic examiner at the St. Bart hospital.
One fine morning Prof. Hutton was summoned by Scotland Yard’s Inspector Adam to assist him in the murder of a wealthy socialite in the suburb of London .Dr. Hatton and his French assistant Roumande are bewildered by the strange crimes engulfing the street of London and the bodies just keep on arriving at the morgue at the St. Bart. As the trio investigates the murder, they embark on a journey which hen
Devoured , has parallel plots running at the beginning and had me stumped at times but at the end it came in together to fit into a befitting ending. I was rather taken by surprise by the book , it is too good to be the debut novel.
This book is brilliantly researched as is evident in the story . And about Prof. Hatton , he is a remarkable character , he is brilliant , astute and quite archaic (Archaic to me but quite modern to the citizenry of 19 th century London.) This character of Prof. Hatton shows a lot of promise and can be a remarkable one but he has a long journey to cover , a lot more to evolve to get itched in the pages of history books. The most amazing thing about the book is the exemplary narration and that’s include its description of the of Victorian London, it’s immaculate and it transports you straight onto the streets of London without any effort.
It was a brilliant read , true to the effort of the author and justifying your effort in reading this book.
And the one of the most notable thing about the book is the cover design , simply superb. Hats off to the design team.
Having said that I will also add that this book also had some disappointments, foremost of them was the length judging by the pace at the start of the book I felt that the story was truncated at the end .It fell short by some fifty pages. (And of course it is a matter of personal perspective and an author can only do his/her best.)
Devoured , the debut novel of D.E Meredith is a runaway hit , all in all it’s an attractive prospect.