The Great Stink($14.99Value)

Description

It is 1855, and engineer William May has returned home to his beloved wife from the battlefields of the Crimea. He secures a job transforming London's sewer system and begins to lay his ghosts to rest. Above ground, his work is increasingly compromised by corruption, and cholera epidemics threaten the city. But it is only when the peace of the tunnels is shattered by murder that William loses his tenuous hold on sanity. Implicated in the crime, plagued by visions and nightmares, even he is not sure of his innocence. Long Arm Tom, who scavenges for valuables in the subterranean world of the sewers and cares for nothing and no one but his dog, Lady, is William's only hope of salvation. Will he bring the truth to light? With extraordinarily vivid characters and unflinching prose that recall Year of Wonders and The Dress Lodger, The Great Stink marks the debut of an outstandingly talented writer in the tradition of the best historical novelists. It takes a world of confidence to name your debut novel The Great Stink , and to set it in a sewer. Not even a modern sewer--charmless though that may be--but the crumbling, cholera-laden, rat-infested, fungus-rich sewers of London in the mid-Victorian period, from which pockets of deadly gas frequently burbled to the surface. Clare Clark's unsavory but completely absorbing first novel is a Dantean tour of this reeking underworld and its denizens: both the scavengers--human and animal--and the reformers, who brave the tunnels in the service of public hygiene and social progress after the 1858 Act of Parliament that called for the rebuilding of the sewer system. The Great Stink juxtaposes two darknesses, both embodied in the filthy tunnels: the lawless desperation of the very poor, and the despair of madness. One of the junior engineers most useful in mapping the existing sewer is William May, a studious, methodical veteran of the Crimean War who manages to conceal from everyone but his wife the horrors he brought out of battle with him. The tunnels don't frighten William; they provide isolation and silence for the bloody rites that keep the Mr. Hyde in him at bay. It seems only a matter of time before William's self-destruction turns outward. Long Arm Tom, his counterpart among the poor, is a "tosher." He enters the tunnels illegally, scraping the sludge for coins or other booty, and trapping hundreds of rats for fighting against dogs at local taverns (all the rage for sporting gentlemen since dog fights have been outlawed). Kindness is a liability in Tom's world, but two acts of pity--one toward a dog, and one, more grudgingly, toward William--provide the resistance that changes the course of this otherwise relentlessly dire story. The very weak-stomached may need a cup of mint tea or a bowl of potpourri beside them as they wade through the sewer with Tom and William. Clark has spared readers none of the stink, nor the sharp pleasures of suspense. --­Regina Marler The critical establishment is awash in second-grade (and second-rate) puns! Maybe they just can’t help themselves; in The Great Stink , her debut novel, Clark turns the London sewer system into a character that is as engaging as her humans. The book wears its influences (can we hear another Dickensian?!) and research (Clark is a former history student) on its sleeve. The result, despite a largely predictable plot, pleases the balance of reviewers, most of whom see a lot of promise in Clark. And give the young author credit: there is bravery in a first-time novelist setting her work in a sewer. Imagine the puns the critics would have emerged with if the book had really stunk. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. Despite its unappealing title, this promising debut novel from newcomer Clark should whet the appetites of historical fiction fans who like a crackling good mystery thrown into the mix. When engineer William May, an emotionally fragile Crimean War veteran, descends into the noxious sewers of mid-Victorian London to assess the feasibility of the massive sewer repairs prompted by the cholera epidemic of 1855, he experiences a measure of psychological relief after he begins cutting himself in the putrid privacy of the dangerously crumbling sewage tunnels. As his tenuous mental equilibrium begins to slip, he is framed for a brutal underground murder and eventually begins to doubt his own innocence. With both his life and his sanity on the line, he must rely on self--proclaimed sewer-rat Long-Arm Tom to unravel an intricate web of deceit and corruption to clear his good name. Clark's meticulous research provides a firm foundation for this fascinating fictional foray into one of the most monumental construction and engineering projects of the fledgling industrial age. Margaret Flanagan Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved CLARE CLARK lives in London. The Great Stink is her first novel.