BooksChatter: ☀ The Insanity of Murder: Dr Dody McCleland Mysteries [4]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for The Insanity of Murder, a Mystery by Felicity Young (1 August 2015, AUS Impulse, 236 pages).

This is the fourth book in the Dr Dody McCleland Mysteries series.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below, as well as details about the other books in the series. Read the first two chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

Author Felicity Young will be awarding eCopy of The Insanity of Murder to 3 randomly drawn winners via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀) and reviews (✍).

Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

Another engrossing mystery in the acclaimed Dr Dody McCleland series, featuring Britain's first female autopsy surgeon.

To Doctor Dody McCleland, the gruesome job of dealing with the results of an explosion at the Necropolis Railway Station is testing enough. But when her suffragette sister Florence is implicated in the crime, matters worsen and Dody finds her loyalty cruelly divided. Can she choose between love for her sister and her secret love for Chief Inspector Matthew Pike, the investigating officer on the case?

Dody and Pike's investigations lead them to a women's rest home where patients are not encouraged to read or think and where clandestine treatments and operations are conducted in an unethical and inhumane manner. Together Dody and Pike must uncover such foul play before their secret liaisons become public knowledge - and before Florence becomes the rest home's next victim.

Teaser: Excerpt

     Florence sprang up from her dressing-table chair and rushed to her bed, throwing herself face down upon her pillow. Her emotions spilled as if from a burst floodgate, the bones of her back visible through the thin fabric of her chemise, rising and falling with each gasp.
     ‘All right, I did it, I did it,’ she sobbed.
     It was all very well to have suspicions, but to hear them confirmed thus changed everything. The shock of the admission felt like a blow to Dody’s chest, a physical pain. As she closed her eyes and prayed for strength, angry thoughts buzzed around her head like disturbed bees in a hive.
     Steeling herself as best she could, she sat on the edge of the bed. She must not let her anger show. She must remain calm for Florence’s sake, offer her support and then suggest the most honest course of action — that Florence turn herself in and throw herself on the mercy of the courts.
     Florence spoke first. ‘Every time I close my eyes I see that night watchman’s face. He caught us just after we’d planted the bomb. He tried to put his hand on me and I threw him to the ground. He hit his head.’
     ‘You managed to throw a grown man to the ground?’
     Florence ignored the incredulity in Dody’s voice. ‘We knew the bomb would blow any minute and dragged him behind the convenience block outside the station. We stayed with him until the authorities arrived, then made our escape before we were seen by anyone.’ She paused to draw a shaking breath. ‘If I could save him by surrendering myself to the authorities, I would.’ She sat up in the bed and took the handkerchief Dody offered. ‘I really would — but it won’t make any difference to him now, will it?’
     ‘No, I suppose it won’t,’ Dody said, chewing her bottom lip. ‘But it would offer his family some form of justice.’
     Florence appeared not to hear Dody’s last remark, as if still fixated on the scene in her head. It must be a relief to talk the whole ghastly incident through with someone, Dody thought.
     ‘And all those bodies … it was a horrible mistake that should never have happened,’ Florence said.
     ‘Who was your partner? You seem to have been left to face the consequences.’
     She lifted her chin with some of her usual spirit. ‘I will never reveal my accomplice’s name. ’
     ‘But you will turn yourself in, won’t you?’
     Florence swallowed. She shook her head.
     ‘But you have to.’
     ‘I received a note from Christabel. On no account am I to admit to this disaster. This incident has apparently been an embarrassment to them.’
     ‘For goodness sake, Florence, you mean they will take no responsibility for this atrocity at all?’
     ‘No,’ she said, with an amazing absence of rancour.
     Dody wanted to throttle her sister. How could she brush this betrayal off so easily? Her dedication to the cause had made her quite blind to its dark side. Dody jumped up from the bed and began to pace.
     ‘I suppose you’ll tell Pike now,’ Florence said with a sigh. ‘I’ll deny it, of course.’
     Dody said nothing. Her agitated footsteps bounced the floorboards and made the scent bottles on the dressing table tremble.
     ‘So where does this leave you?’ Florence added, finally.
     ‘Between Scylla and Charybdis,’ Dody muttered under her breath as she continued to pace. And think.

The Insanity of Murder - available NOW!

UK:

US:

The Series: Dr Dody McCleland Mysteries

The Anatomy of Death | Antidote to Murder | The Scent of Murder |

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

The Anatomy of Death [1]

At the turn of the twentieth century, London’s political climate is in turmoil, as women fight for the right to vote. Dody McCleland has her own battles to fight. As England’s first female autopsy surgeon, not only must she prove herself, she must prove that murder treats everyone equally…

After a heated women’s rights rally turns violent, an innocent suffragette is found murdered. When she examines the body, Dody McCleland is shocked to realize that the victim was a friend of her sister—fueling her determination to uncover the cause of the protestor’s suspicious death.

For Dody, gathering clues from a body is often easier than handling the living—especially Chief Detective Inspector Pike. Pike is looking to get to the bottom of this case but has a hard time trusting anyone—including Dody. Determined to earn Pike’s trust and to find the killer, Dody will have to sort through real and imagined secrets. But if she’s not careful, she may end up on her own examination table…

[Published 1 May 2012, 313 pages]

back to series | back to top

Antidote to Murder [2]

In the scorching summer of 1911, London is a hotbed of political activity as women fight for their equality and Germany starts to pose a dangerous threat. But Dody McCleland, England’s first female autopsy surgeon, has more immediate concerns—such as finding out who’s trying to frame her for murder…

A distraught scullery maid appears at Dody’s Women’s Clinic begging for an abortion. It turns out she has a case of lead poisoning, which Dody believes she took to induce a miscarriage. Instead of reporting the girl to the authorities, Dody decides to council her and prescribes an antidote. But days later, the maid is found dead from a bungled criminal abortion—and the coroner receives a series of anonymous letters accusing Dody of the crime.

Now, Dody has to find out who has framed her for the maid’s murder—or else she’ll be embroiled in a criminal trial. Chief Inspector Pike is working undercover on another case, playing the piano for an exotic dancer who may be spying for the Germans, but when he hears Dody’s in trouble, he insists on lending a hand. But as Pike and Dody are about to discover, she’s not only fighting for her career, but for her life, too…

[Published 7 May 2013, 358 pages]

back to series | back to top

The Scent of Murder [3]

'If a black dog appears along the old corpse way, the route a funeral procession takes to the churchyard, it is thought to be escorting the dead soul to the afterlife. A black dog sighting without a funeral procession, however, is supposed to foreshadow death.'

For Doctor Dody McCleland, the unearthing of an ancient skeleton in a dry riverbed is a welcome break from the monotony of chaperoning her younger sister at a country house near the isolated hamlet of Piltdown. But when she begins her analysis of the bones, Britain's first female autopsy surgeon discovers they are much more recent - and they are the result of murder. With Chief Inspector Matthew Pike's help Dody begins to investigate. Soon she finds herself pitted against ugly traditionalism, exploitation, spectral dogs, a ghostly hunt and a series of events that not only threaten her belief in scientific rationalism, but threaten her life itself.

'A classic, with fluid and atmospheric storytelling ... Young's skilful narration captivates and intrigues. Her medical knowledge provides a veracity that brings the action alive. there is romance, suspense, fleeting glimpses of the supernatural and exploration of the good and truly evil in human nature ... the Scent of Murder incorporates memorable characters, immersed in an interesting historical period, with love and tragedy intertwined. It has sentiment without sentimentality.' WESt AUStRALIAN

[Published 1 February 2014, 283 pages]

back to series | back to top

About the Author

I was born in Germany and educated at an English boarding school while my parents travelled the world with the British army. I think the long boring plane trips home played an important part in helping me to develop my creative imagination.

I settled with my parents in Western Australia in 1976, became a nurse, married young and had three children. Not surprisingly, it took ten years to complete an Arts degree (English lit) at UWA.

In 1990 my family and I moved to a small farm 40 kilometers NE of Perth (Western Australia) where I established a Suffolk sheep stud, reared orphan kangaroos and embarked upon a life of crime writing.

Follow Felicity Young: