First published 2003
London, summer 1849. Cholera threatens the city as engineer Joshua Jeavons works beside the muddy Thames, designing revolutionary sanitation systems to cleanse the metropolis of disease. He dreams of a pure city to match his pure wife Isobella, who maintains her virginity even in marriage. One evening Isobella vanishes without explanation. Joshua's ordered world crumbles as rumors spread about his wife's questionable behavior. Has the fetid atmosphere of the great city infected even his own home? After searching the fashionable districts proves futile, Joshua must venture into the sordid alleys of Haymarket. Among the prostitutes, pickpockets and vagrants of London's underworld, he continues his desperate hunt. This descent into a realm of vice and corruption reveals unexpected humanity in those abandoned by a hypocritical society along the polluted river's edge.
Genres: fiction, historical-fiction, mystery, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: descent-into-darkness, lost-spouse, societal-hypocrisy
Setting: Haymarket, London, Thames
Period: 1849
396 pages · Paperback · BELFOND