Stuart S Laing

The Mistress of Bedlam Stuart S Laing

"Who can judge who is truly mad, when even the doctors are insane?" Edinburgh August 1746 Behind the high walls of Edinburgh's Bethlem Hospital, the mad, the bad and the dangerous are kept safely locked away from the public gaze, unless, of course, the public are prepared to pay for the thrill of viewing these unfortunate, insane souls in the human menagerie they call Bedlam. For some though, these tours are not thrilling enough, and for a select few there is the possibility to visit long after the public have departed. These men have the opportunity to become intimately acquainted with the patients if they have the nerve, and the money, to risk tasting the grimmest of forbidden fruits. One such private tour ends in blood and terror; a doctor is found murdered and his patient escaped into the filth choked streets of the night. Robert Young of Newbiggin, private investigator to the wealthy, finds himself being drawn into the mystery to identify the person responsible for the doctor's death and, in doing so, discovers that there are uglier truths to be unearthed than he could ever have imagined possible. From the horrific truth behind a young woman, abandoned and alone in a foreign land, to the darkest of family secrets, Robert and Captain Travers of the Town Guard, must venture deep into the closed world of a Georgian asylum, a hospital where casual cruelty and abuse are considered normal, and kindness is frowned upon. Only here, in this man-made hell can they hope to find the killer before they strike again.