A Sickness in the Soul: An Ashmole Foxe Georgian Mystery
by William Savage
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Historical Mystery
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BLURB:
“Many
people wear masks. Some to hide their feelings; some to conceal their identity;
and some to hide that most hideous plague of mankind: a sickness in the soul.”
Ashmole Foxe, Norwich
bookseller, man-about-town and solver of mysteries will encounter all of these
in this tangled drama of hatred, obsession and redemption.
This is a story set in
the England of the 1760s, a time of rigid class distinctions, where the rich
idle their days away in magnificent mansions, while hungry children beg, steal
and prostitute themselves on the streets. An era on the cusp of revolution in
America and France; a land where outward wealth and display hide simmering
political and social tensions; a country which had faced intermittent war for
the past fifty years and would need to survive a series of world-wide conflicts
in the fifty years ahead.
Faced with no less than
three murders, occurring from the aristocracy to the seeming senseless
professional assassination of a homeless vagrant, Ashmole Foxe must call on all
his skill and intelligence to uncover the sickness which appears to be
infecting his city’s very soul.
Can Foxe uncover the
truth which lies behind a series of baffling deaths, from an aristocrat
attending a ball to a vagrant murdered where he slept in a filthy back-alley?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
All might have continued on its stable course had not a day
arrived when a stranger came to the house. Earlier that morning, Dr Danson
informed Archibald Gunton, the butler, to his considerable surprise, that he
was expecting a visitor. When he arrived, the butler was told, he must be
admitted immediately and without question. He would await the man in his
library.
The man came and spent barely twenty minutes with Dr Danson.
No one saw or heard him leave. It was not until the butler entered the library
about an hour later that he found the reason. His master lay slumped back in
his chair, his mouth and eyes wide open. On his face, there was an expression
that the butler later described to his mistress as being ‘as if he had looked
into hell itself’. At his feet were his wig and a small dagger; the one which
he usually kept on his desk. There was blood on the left side of his chest. It
was obvious at once that the Reverend Dr Jonathon Danson, scholar of the occult
and seeker after hidden knowledge, was dead.
As the news spread in the neighbourhood, two schools of
opinion formed. The majority, considering Dr Danson’s circumstances, announced
that it was plainly a domestic crime. An elderly rich husband takes a pretty,
young wife, who was penniless before he married her. ‘Murder!’ they whispered
amongst themselves. ‘Stands to reason, don’t it?’ A sizeable number reached a
different conclusion; one based on rumours of the man’s strange interests.
‘Witchcraft!’ they muttered, or ‘devilry!’ Either way, that group were certain
the powers of evil had come to claim one of their own.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
All my books
are set between 1760 and around 1800, a period of turmoil in Britain, with
constant wars, revolutions in America and France and finally the titanic,
22-year struggle with Napoleon.
The Ashmole
Foxe series takes place at the start of this time and is located in Norwich. Mr
Foxe is a dandy, a bookseller and, unknown to most around him, the mayor’s
immediate choice to deal with anything likely to upset the peace or economic
security of the city.
The series
featuring Dr Adam Bascom, a young gentleman physician caught up in the
beginning of the Napoleonic wars, takes place in a variety of locations near
the North Norfolk coast. Adam builds a successful medical practice, but his
insatiable curiosity and knack for
unravelling intrigue constantly involve him in mysteries large and small.
I have spent a
good deal of my life travelling in Britain and overseas. Now I am more than
content to write stories and run a blog devoted to the world of Georgian
England, which you can find at http://www.penandpension.com. You can also
follow me on Twitter as @penandpension.
The Ashmole Foxe
Mysteries
The Ashmole
Foxe Mysteries http://bit.ly/2Abn1Ks
The Fabric of
Murder http://relinks.me/B00W3SDJW8
Dark Threads of
Vengeance http://relinks.me/B01FPQ2Q1Y
This Parody of
Death http://relinks.me/B06XDNY81B
Bad Blood Will
Out http://relinks.me/B079RCVQ4X
Black as She’s
Painted http://relinks.me/B07H1SZN37
A Sickness in
the Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WF3Y4VJ
The Dr Adam
Bascom Mysteries
The Dr Adam
Bascom Mysteries http://bit.ly/2k43dSQ
An Unlamented
Death http://relinks.me/B00RXGWIY0
The Code for
Killing http://relinks.me/B01A2BY1LU
A Shortcut to
Murder http://relinks.me/B01M1R78L3
A Tincture of
Secrets and Lies http://relinks.me/B075LM2TZP
Death of a Good
Samaritan https://relinks.me/B07NLCGK2Y
Blog
Pen and
Pension: http://bit.ly/1Kb1Q4k
Author Page
Amazon Author
page: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00RZBGQ0K
GUEST POST
GUEST POST
Why do I choose to set my books in Georgian England?
Criminal detection today involves a great
deal of scientific and legal complexity. There are complex rules to be followed
by every investigator to safeguard the accused and prevent miscarriages of
justice. Forensic science also plays a major role in a good many prosecution or
defence cases. Since I know nothing of either of these matters, writing
something credible would demand considerable research beforehand in areas in
which I have little interest. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes claimed
amazing forensic skills, but you could never get away today by giving your
protagonists abilities which owe everything to fantasy and little or nothing to
genuine science. I want to write stories in which the process of detection owes
everything to human intelligence and insight, so I must either return to a past
when nothing else was available, or write sci-fi fantasy, for which I have no
taste whatsoever.
Why 18th-century England? For a
start, I do not feel I know enough of day-to-day life in any other place and time
period to write convincingly. I also now live in what still looks like a
Georgian town, surrounded by the grand mansions of 18th-century
statesmen and landowners. It’s all right here, within walking distance. How
could I write about any other period?
Understanding
Georgian England
Georgian England was a paradox. On the
surface, it was a time of rationalism and scientific endeavour, coupled with
rising wealth, sophistication and elegance amongst the middle and upper
classes. It was also a land where outward wealth and display hid simmering
political and social tensions. The country had faced intermittent wars with
several continental countries for the past fifty years and would need to
survive a further series of world-wide conflicts in the fifty years ahead. It
was an era which would see revolutions in America and France, with monarchies
overthrown and the whole style of government changed for ever. England’s civil
war had come a hundred years earlier, but the echoes of that conflict, and the ideas
it had set loose, were still almost as powerful as they had ever been.
The upper and middle classes were enjoying
rising living standards, access to the wealth of India and the marvels from China,
and scientific and technological progress at a rate not seen before in a
thousand years. Yet for the poor, life had scarcely changed since mediaeval
times. They still lived in squalor; their outlook a mixture of traditional
notions mixed with superstition and the desperation to survive by any means
they could — and that included crime, vice and a sharp-witted opportunism that
might sometimes include both.
Ashmole
Foxe, Bookseller, Dandy and Investigator
Into this rich mix of influences comes a
series of murders in Norwich, which was still the second or third largest city
in England at the time. “A Sickness in the Soul” is set in the 1760s; a time of
rigid class distinctions, where the rich idle their days away in magnificent
mansions, while hungry children beg, steal and prostitute themselves on the
streets. A time when rich merchants rival the gentry in the accumulation and
display of wealth, while poor artisans struggle to survive and the rural are
losing their employment and their meagre landholdings to the vast change in
land ownership known as the Enclosure Movement. In place of a few acres to grow
food and keep their animals, the rural poor were now forced to take whatever
work they could, which usually meant seasonal labour for a pittance and the
chance to starve when winter came. Many flocked to the towns, hoping to find
employment in the new factories and mills. If they succeeded, they found the
hours long, the work dangerous and the pay barely sufficient to live on.
England’s wealth from overseas trade benefited
the few and brought misery to the many, as cheap food and goods from overseas
drove down domestic prices. I have chosen to set Ashmole Foxe in perhaps the
most ambiguous position I could find. On the one hand, he is a mere tradesman
and not even one of the merchant barons who ran Norwich. On the other, he is a
rich man, with abundant time and resources which allow him to indulge in
whatever takes his fancy. He is a dandy, a womaniser and at the same time a
secret philanthropist on a considerable scale. His eagerness to bed any pretty woman
who seems willing would be roundly condemned by many today; yet his treatment
of all the women he encounters displays a sensitivity and empathy that would
have been almost angelic at the time and is still rare in our world today.
Ashmole Foxe is a bundle of contradictions,
wrapped up in the most elegant styles of a time when to be a gentleman demanded
a level of sophistication, education and politeness of manner that has never
been approached, let alone exceeded, at any time since. In many ways, Ashmole
Foxe is the 18th century: gracious, elegant and cultured,
while also capable of behaving in ways that would make many a strict moralist
suffer indigestion for a year!
The Ashmole Foxe Mysteries in order
- “The Fabric of Murder” http://relinks.me/B00W3SDJW8
- “Dark Threads of Vengeance” http://relinks.me/B01FPQ2Q1Y
- “This Parody of Death” http://relinks.me/B06XDNY81B
- “Bad Blood Will Out” http://relinks.me/B079RCVQ4X
- “Black as She’s Painted” http://relinks.me/B07H1SZN37
- “A Sickness in the Soul” Getbook.at/SoulSickness
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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