Description

From the bestselling author of The Butchering Art and The Facemaker comes the astonishing true story of Joseph Bell, the Scottish surgeon whose extraordinary talent for detection inspired Sherlock Holmes

Edinburgh, 1878. A medical student squeezes into the Royal Infirmary’s packed operating theatre, eager to catch a glimpse of his celebrated professor-a man whose uncanny powers of observation blur the line between diagnosis and detective work.

That man was Joseph Bell. With a flair for the theatrical and an eye for clues hidden in the tiniest details, Bell astonished his students with lightning-fast deductions about his patients’ lives. Though he considered his methods to be quite ‘elementary’, they captured the imagination of his audience – including his prized student, a young Arthur Conan Doyle, who would eventually abandon his medical career in order to create the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

In Sleuth-hound, award-winning historian Lindsey Fitzharris guides us through the smog-choked alleys and crowded slums of Victorian Edinburgh to recount the untold story of the man who inspired literature’s most iconic sleuth. Bell’s talent was so formidable that he was called upon to investigate criminal cases and, alongside Edinburgh’s chief police surgeon, worked on some of the highest profile murders of the century, including Jack the Ripper. Together, the two men pioneered a new era of forensic science to crack crimes.

By scrutinizing a scratch on a desk, a trace of cigar ash, or the slightest peculiarity of a man’s gait, Bell could turn the smallest clues into revelations. The result, as Sleuth-Hound grippingly shows, changed medicine, literature – and detection – forever.

Publisher Review

Lindsey Fitzharris is an electrifying storyteller whose gift for weaving science and history into an impeccably researched narrative is second to none. In Sleuth-Hound, she brings the extraordinary world of Joseph Bell-the brilliant physician who inspired Sherlock Holmes-vividly to life with all the pace of a detective story and the authority of a master historian — Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five A stunning, magnificent achievement. The outcome of incredible archival research and sensational detective work, this gripping book is a dazzling revelation, which absolutely transforms our understanding of medical history. You are on the streets of Edinburgh, right there with Conan Doyle and Bell as they explore the world of science. As gripping as a thriller, with cinematic vision and diamond brilliance, this book is a spectacular triumph. Lindsey Fitzharris is one of our greatest living historians — Kate Williams, author of Regina A delicious foray into the compelling-and grisly-world of 19th-century forensics, as Fitzharris unmasks the ‘real’ Sherlock Holmes. Convincing and delightful — Erik Larson, author of The Demon of Unrest Lindsey Fitzharris: most entertaining writer in the history of the history of medicine! In her latest exploration of the field’s quixotic heroes, we meet physician Joseph Bell, the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes and a pioneer in the nascent field of medical jurisprudence, aka criminal forensics. In just the right amount of delightfully lurid detail, Fitzharris brings to life the first murder cases wherein science took a seat in the courtroom. Fascinating and fabulous — Mary Roach, author of Replaceable You and Stiff As spellbinding as any work of fiction * Booklist *