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Dark Asylum

CWA daggers: Endeavour Historical Dagger, 2017

ebook / ISBN-13: 9781472122339

Price: £8.99

ON SALE: 2nd March 2017

Genre: Fiction & Related Items / Crime & Mystery

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‘Evocative…brilliant plotting’ REBECCA GRIFFITHS

‘Vivid, pungent and perilous’ CHRIS BROOKMYRE


A chilling and atmospheric thriller perfect for fans of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, The Silent Companions and The Strangers Diaries.


1851, Angel Meadow Asylum. Dr Rutherford, principal physician to the insane, is found dead, his head bashed in, his ears cut off, his lips and eyes stitched closed. The police direct their attention towards Angel Meadow’s inmates, but to Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain the crime is an act of calculated retribution, rather than of madness.

To discover the truth Jem and Will must pursue the story through the darkest corners of the city – from the depths of a notorious rookery, to the sordid rooms of London’s brothels, the gallows, the graveyard, the convict fleet and then back to the asylum. In a world where guilt and innocence, crime and atonement, madness and reason, are bounded by hypocrisy, ambition and betrayal, Jem and Will soon find themselves caught up in a web of dark secrets and hidden identities.


Praise for E.S. Thomson:

‘It’s rare that a book is Gothic enough for me, but Beloved Poison is killing it. The blood, the bones…’ LAURA PURCELL

‘Complex, harrowing and highly enjoyable’ DAILY EXPRESS

‘Marvellous, vivid . . . breathtakingly dark’ JANET ELLIS

‘Jem Flockhart books are the best I’ve read in years’ KIRSTY LOGAN

‘A marvel . . . thoroughly engrossing’ MARY PAULSON ELLIS

‘A tale of Victorian London to freeze your blood on a cold winter’s night’ EVENING TELEGRAPH

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Reviews

Following on from the events of acclaimed debut Beloved Poison, Dark Asylum vividly portrays the Gothic horror and questionable science of Victorian mental asylums in chilling detail. Meticulously researched and masterfully plotted, E.S. Thomson has written a complex, harrowing and highly enjoyable tale
Daily Express
I hugely enjoyed E.S Thomson's The Blood . . . mesmerising . . . evokes the sights and the smells of the seedy dockland area brilliantly. Her protagonist Jem Flockhart is an inspired invention - a female apothecary disguised as a man, whose life and loves are as complex a secret as the cases she investigates
Sally Magnusson on The Blood
A historical novel to be savoured
Lesley McDowell, The National on Beloved Poison
A dark, moody and sinister novel
Sunday Express
ES Thompson's Jem Flockhart books are the best I've read in years. Jem is just my kind of heroine: scarred, smart, complex, and unapologetically queer
Kirsty Logan, author of <i> The Gracekeepers </i>
Meticulously researched and masterfully plotted . . . [Thomson] vividly portrays the horror and menace of the city with harrowingly gruesome and disturbingly macabre prose which at the same time is engagingly morbid and addictively readable
John Cleal, Crime Review
Smart, spine-tingling and sprawling, this second outing shows Thomson has the staying power for a long and delightfully grotesque series
Jaclyn Fulwood, Infinite Reads
From the first page to the last, I enjoyed every brilliantly written, and often hideous, detail ... A splendid read
Cambridge Magazine on Beloved Poison
Meticulously researched and masterfully plotted, E S Thomson has written a complex, harrowing and highly enjoyable tale.
Daily Express
Here's a tale of Victorian London to freeze your blood on a cold winter's night
Alex Gordon, Evening Telegraph on Beloved Poison
Dark Asylum positively oozes gothic menace, and the author's evocation of the city at that time is visceral and engagingly morbid . . . A first class piece of historical crime writing
Doug Johnstone, Big Issue