Name: The Wages of Sin
ISBN: 9781681773322

Kaite Welsh

A page-turning tale of murder, subversion and vice in which afemale medical student in Victorian Edinburgh is drawn into a murder investigation when she recognizes one of the corpses in her anatomy lecture."

The Wages of Sin

An irresistible mystery set in 1890s Edinburgh, Kaite Welsh's THE WAGES OF SIN features a female medical student-turned-detective, and will thrill fans of Sarah Waters and Antonia Hodgson. 'Historical fiction doesn't get much more delicious or original' Damian Barr 'This powerful novel combines a disturbing look at late Victorian attitudes towards women and morality with a satisfying murder mystery' Sunday Express Sarah Gilchrist has fled from London to Edinburgh in disgrace and is determined to become a doctor, despite the misgivings of her family and society. As part of the University of Edinburgh's first intake of female medical students, Sarah comes up against resistance from lecturers, her male contemporaries, and - perhaps worst of all - her fellow women, who will do anything to avoid being associated with a fallen woman... When one of Sarah's patients turns up in the university dissecting room as a battered corpse, Sarah finds herself drawn into Edinburgh's dangerous underworld of bribery, brothels and body snatchers - and a confrontation with her own past. What readers are saying about THE WAGES OF SIN: 'Sarah Gilchrist is a brilliant lead character. Atmospheric and evocative. Well worth a read' 'A fascinating exploration of how women were treated in Victorian times, enveloped in a dark murder mystery. It kept me guessing and kept me wanting more. One of my favourite historical fictions ever' 'A punchy, feminist page-turner with a wonderful sense of atmosphere'

A compelling tale of medicine and murder in Victorian Edinburgh

Moray Lyle McIntosh

Wages of Sin follows the trials and tribulations of Sarah Gilchrist, an English medical student at the University of Edinburgh. Kaite Welsh sets her scene with verve and passion, establishing the Auld Reekie atmosphere of Victorian Edinburgh with its dark and dingy closes, Cowgate squalor and apparent moral turpitude, contrasting the whorehouses and tenements of the Old Town with the more refined life of the New Town. It’s a setting rich with possibility for a historical crime drama and she fills it with familiar characters, from the dour, hot-headed young professor seeking to salve a wounded heart in drink and bare-fist fighting to Sarah’s staid and disapproving family and a shady brothel madam. There is nothing particularly original here but it is both engaging and entertaining all the same.

What does add a fresh edge is Welsh’s strong and unabashed feminism. She doesn’t shrink at all from laying out all of the stigma, prejudice and restraint that Victorian women laboured under, whether forced into back-breaking char work or prostitution through poverty or struggling to make a mark in a world that refused power, education, profession and self-actualisation she reveals the struggles of all women from the gutter to the townhouse. She has populated her pages with strong female characters, beginning with Sarah who, banished from London for a public “disgrace” is determined to complete her studies among the first female medical students admitted to the University of Edinburgh. The obstacles faced by these women are considerable and enraging, from the condescension of the staff (male) to the abuse from their fellow students; vicious pranks, assaults and abuse. But Welsh also addresses the problems within the ranks of the women themselves. There is inevitable competition between the students working so hard to prove themselves worthy and they are not above achieving this through backbiting and rumour. The way these women have internalised the more overt sexism of Victorian society is clear in the way they treat each other, casting doubt on virtue and morality and condescending to the lives of women not as fortunate as themselves.

You may notice that I haven’t mentioned the mystery yet and there is a reason for that but some details first. As part of her medical training, and one of the few outside activities allowed by an aunt and uncle watching eagle-eyed over her besmirched virtue, Sarah volunteers at a Cowgate clinic for the poor under the aegis of one of Ediburgh’s few female doctors. Here is where the prostitutes and the destitute can find some help and here she meets Lucy, a young prostitute pregnant and desperate not to be. But abortion is illegal and the clinic has troubles enough. Later Lucy turns up at the University, on Sarah’s slab, a body donated for dissection. In the short time she spends with the body Sarah becomes suspicious about the cause of death and as Lucy’s fate preys on her mind she begins to investigate the circumstances of her death, only for her suspicions to fall upon one of her own lecturers, a man who knows her secret and has many of his own and to whom she finds herself reluctantly drawn…

The mystery does get a little lost in all of Sarah’s other preoccupations; her studies, her repressive home life, the threat of a former scandal, the hostility of her fellow students. There a few too many long pauses and rather too few developments to make the crime side of the story particularly strong and the final denouement is a little disappointing and a touch contrary to the strong feminist message throughout. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Welsh’s clever us of Edinburgh’s dank, seedy atmosphere, her pugnacious tackling of women’s place in Victorian society and her use of genre tropes while (almost always) staying true to her intent and her characters. There isn’t the nuance or subtlety of something like Sarah Moss’s Bodies of Light but there are well-rounded female characters, strong and progressive without losing their connection to their own time. An interesting and enjoyable debut and a character and author I would like to see again.

The Wages of Sin

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