The Fiend in Human

Publishers Weekly

Canadian writer Gray portrays the mean streets and byways of 1852 London with a skill worthy of Dickens, but handles the mystery elements of this uneven debut with less success. A cloud of fear over the city has been lifted by the arrest of William Ryan (aka Chokee Bill), a Jack-the-Ripper precursor who has strangled and mutilated five prostitutes. Edmund Whitty, a dissolute and struggling freelance journalist, attempts to improve his fortunes and stave off his debtors by using the upcoming execution of the monster as the basis for a series of articles. He decides to credit the accused's protestations of innocence to justify his own inquiry into the killings and his printed attacks on the hypocrisy that tolerates the desperate poverty and squalor of London's slums. Evidence that the murders have continued despite Ryan's incarceration bolsters Whitty's crusade. Gray masterfully conveys mid-Victorian society, from the haughty upper classes to the oppressed poor. Even minor characters, such as the bartender at one of the reporter's favorite haunts, come to vivid life. Unfortunately, the entrance of the real Chokee Bill into the action rather spoils the suspense, while a plot twist toward the end will surprise few readers. The author may not be the next Caleb Carr, but his considerable gifts bode well for future forays into crime fiction. (Sept. 15) FYI: A performer and composer, Gray is best known for his stage musical, Billy Bishop Goes to War. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

First-time novelist Gray has turned his pen from the writing of stage musicals to the exploration of the seamy and violent London of 1852. The murderous rampage of Chokee Bill, a.k.a. the Fiend in Human Form, has finally ended with the arrest and conviction of one William Ryan. City dwellers breathe a sigh of relief and eagerly anticipate his execution for his brutal slayings of local prostitutes. But Edmund Whitty, special correspondent for the Falcon newspaper, doubts Ryan's guilt and openly speculates whether the real Fiend could still be at large. Teaming up with Henry Owler, a "patterer" who sells crime stories on the street, he attempts to uncover the guilty party in time to save Ryan's life. Meanwhile, Owler's daughter and young ward are on an investigation of their own, bringing them dangerously close to the killer. Gray's Victorian thriller is noteworthy for the lovingly detailed (if sordid and unappealing) scenes of London and the period style in which Gray writes. However, the proceedings themselves are sadly lacking in spunk. Suitable for large public libraries.-Laurel Bliss, Yale Arts Lib. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Canadian composer, performer, and now first-novelist MacLachlan attempts a penetrating look at man's vile desires in a same-old serial killer tale, transported in time to 1852. "It is impossible to overestimate how truly unbalanced London became during the Chokee Bill panic," so why try? But that's the question posed by this examination of press sensationalism, mid-19th-century-style. The murderer in question, already in custody, was nicknamed by London columnist Whitty, who, unlike his editors, at least has a soul: "When the racy ones come a cropper, what hope remains for the high-minded stuff?" But Whitty's not so high-minded as to turn it down when Owler, a seller of crime stories, offers a partnership to interview Chokee Bill. And when the interview happens, might Whitty begin to wonder whether the right man is really in jail, and might Chokee Bill know who the real killer is, and might he help them find him, and might this all smack a little too much of similar tales already deeply lodged in the collective unconscious? No matter. Beneath the surface here is the suggestion that the lurid hunger of the modern imagination owes its craving to a time even more removed than Jack the Ripper. Whitty's tour will take him through the bowels of a London on the brink of a sadistic modernity: seedy brothels, cellar mazes, the offices of unscrupulous editors, the parlors of women whose appetites are the invention of erotica, a Piccadilly that "churns in a grey whirlpool of hard-shelled beings like stones in a river, clattering across the cobbles," and into subterranean chambers and passageways. But as exhaustive as all this is, one wonders whether Gray ever stopped to consider that his artifactwasn't exactly the object he hoped to criticize: more than the murderer here, the media is the target, but it's never clear that the project manages to escape the gravity of its own critical insight. Smart, but echoing too familiarly. Agent: Helen Heller

From the Publisher

"If you were one of those who made Caleb Carr's The Alienist a bestseller, you'll enjoy The Fiend in Human."—The Charlotte Observer

"Gray portrays the mean streets and byways of 1852 London with a skill worthy of Dickens."—Publishers Weekly

"Vivid characters, dead-on dialogue, and a galloping good plot make The Fiend in Human a tale irresistible."—Giles Blunt, author of Forty Words for Sorrow

"Great fiction—a perfect place, a perfect time, a perfectly intriguing cast of characters, and a perfectly diabolical villain."—Keith Ablow, author of Compulsion

"A wonderfully atmospheric thriller...It is a splendidly dark Victorian world and a novel which is hard to put down."—Publishing News

The Charlotte Observer

"If you were one of those who made Caleb Carr's The Alienist a bestseller, you'll enjoy The Fiend in Human.

Giles Blunt

"Vivid characters, dead-on dialogue, and a galloping good plot make The Fiend in Human a tale irresistible.

Keith Ablow

"Great fiction—a perfect place, a perfect time, a perfectly intriguing cast of characters, and a perfectly diabolical villain.

Publishing News

"A wonderfully atmospheric thriller...It is a splendidly dark Victorian world and a novel which is hard to put down.