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

. . . . .

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' 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.

I've heard that "The Way Of All Flesh" is planned as the first in a series, and if that's true, the series is off to a great start. The novel marries a forensic attention to historical and medical detail with masterful plotting and pacing. It's a cut above your average crime caper and as an Edinburgh resident I was pleased with the accurate description of my hometown, albeit the 1847 version of the city!

An exhilarating historical crime thriller set in the nineteenth century Edinburgh

Edinburgh, 1847: young medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship under the renowned Dr Simpson, a brilliant obstetrician whose patients range from the wealthy upper class to the poor and desperate living in the city’s murky underbelly. As Dr Simpson takes Will under his wing and involves him in his experiments around the fascinating new science of anaesthesia, Will learns more about the world of medicine and how the horrors of childbirth can be lessened with help from chloroform and other techniques. But something dark is underfoot in Edinburgh; young women are dying, including Will’s childhood friend Evie, and he finds himself joining forces with Dr Simpson’s headstrong and resentful young housemaid Sarah to investigate what could be causing these girls to meet similarly gruesome ends. When the duo discover that the deaths may, in fact, be linked somehow to the dingy, morally ambiguous world of medical experimentation, they find themselves fighting for their lives and will have to overcome their initial differences to make it out alive.

This was an excellent atmospheric story with a relentless plot and plenty of twists. The setting of 19th century Edinburgh is an unusual one that I haven’t encountered before in a novel, but the authors do an excellent job of portraying the city and the period so that you can vividly imagine the dark, rainy streets that Will navigates and feel the danger that lurks behind every corner. The characters were all deftly imagined and well fleshed out, and the major players were likeable and easy for the reader to become invested in. I particularly enjoyed the character of Sarah, a bright and ambitious housemaid whose gender is the only thing that sets her back from pursuing a medical career that fascinates her. The fact that Will has the life she dreams of (working as Dr Simpson’s apprentice) creates friction between the two characters, which added an absorbing layer to their relationship. The end of the story also included an excellent twist and tied up several loose ends in a satisfying way.

As well as being an excellently written novel, I also found some of the historical aspects of this book to be extremely interesting. While some of the gory medical detail may be too much for some readers, the history of medical experiments and anaesthetics is a fascinating area, and it really gripped me to imagine the horror of a time when operations and such would be carried out with no anaesthetic at all! The story also touches on such topics as sexism, class inequality and medical ethics and the inclusion of such thought-provoking issues made this book stick in my head long after I had put it down.

In conclusion, this was a fantastic and gripping book, and I will certainly look forward to any potential sequels or in fact anything written by this talented husband and wife author team.

Daenerys

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

Parry, against a background of mid-19th century Edinburgh, blends a gripping tale of blackmail with a meticulously researched and vivid story describing medical practise and it's development under the renowned Dr Simpson - inventor of chloroform.
The main character is Will Raven, a medical student, who is assigned a live-in apprenticeship in Dr Simpson's elegant Edinburgh home. The novel is shaped around how Will deals with his past and what he sees and learns working alongside Dr Simpson every day. Unfortunately Will not only has that baggage from his past but also lacks any sophistication for dealing with Edinburgh society. This naivety, allied to his over-enthusiasm to experiment, leads him into trouble and very real danger. Nevertheless by the end of the novel, albeit there are many loose ends, things are definitely moving in the right direction, This could be the first of a series and, if it is, I for one, am hooked!

An intriguing story of a young man, Will Raven, trying to forge a medical career in 19th century Edinburgh, an apprentice to an obstetrician whose housemaid Sarah could be a rival to Raven's position were it not for her unfortunate gender and low social status. Together they seek to find out what happened to the many who died in strangely similar circumstances, in a fresh and gritty, vivid historical crime novel.