The Fiend In Human

Apr 20, 2025 1:01 PM

Author:John Maclachlan Gray,Patrick Romer

The Fiend In Human

'In the midst of life we are in death.' London in the early 1850s. The squalid underbelly of the Victorian slums coexist in uneasy partnership with the specious glamour of the privileged, dandified West End, each feeding off the other in an endless circle of vice, exploitation and death. London is the world's capital city of murder, its chief attraction the public execution of killers at Newgate. Edmund Whitty is a correspondent on the Falcon, reporting on the underworld. He is a loser, pursued by creditors and dangerously addicted to alcohol, laudanum and cocaine. He is openly scornful of the balladeers, or patterers, who write up the life of the condemned in doggerel verses even further divorced from truth than his own, embroidered newspaper reports. Whitty reaches his nadir when he is kidnapped and spirited off to the slums of St Giles. His kidnapper is Mr. Owler, a balladeer he has traduced in one of his columns. But instead of revenge Owler wishes them to form an unlikely partnership. The subject of Owler's latest ballad is the serial killer, William Ryan, shortly to hang for his crimes. Ryan denies his guilt, but Owler feels by securing access to the criminal he will extract the man's true confession, beat his competitors to the story and thus make his fortune. He wants Whitty to lend validation to his research. They are about to embark on a strange journey through the darkness of Victorian London where truth and fiction are often indistinguishable, a condemned man's life is at stake and savage, copycat murders continue despite his incarceration.

Reviews

Consistently surprising . . . Montanari keeps the reader deliciously off balance throughout, letting the novel accrue horrors and deft misdirections, right until its gory end

—— Publishers Weekly

The novel is, like the nameless killer's victims, well executed. And like the killer himself, fiendishly twisted. A real page turner

—— Booklist

Told at breakneck pace, with more than one truly frightening villain, and a protagonist whose tenacity in the face of evil makes him a hero for our times, you turn the pages as if your very life depends on it

—— Daily Mail

A relentlessly suspenseful, soul-chilling thriller that hooks you instantly

—— Tess Gerritsen

A no-holds-barred thriller that thrusts the reader into the black soul of the killer ... those with a taste for Thomas Harris will look forward to the sure-to-follow sequel

—— Library Journal

Be prepared to stay up all night

—— James Ellroy

A specialist in serial killer tales ... a wonderfully evocative writer

—— Publishers Weekly

Razor-sharp plotting with a powerful narrative ... thrills to its very satisfying end

—— Chicago Tribune

Savvy and sharp ... as well-written a thriller as The Silence of the Lambs ... A winner

—— Nelson DeMille

With this novel, Montanari's reputation is set in stone - or written in blood - alongside the likes of Connelly, Slaughter and Ellroy

—— Crime Time Magazine

One of the genre's most enduring heroes. Tough, solitary, righteous and incorruptible, [Reacher] harks back to another great fictional detective, Philip Marlowe.

—— Glasgow Herald

A new Jack Reacher novel arrives as the year's first red-hot beach book...the success of these books rests partly on the big, hulking shoulders of their charismatic hero...one of the most enduring action heroes on the American landscape.

—— New York Times

This haunting, stand-alone novel is a subtler work than Child's previous output and offers a sensitively handled romantic sub-plot to boot.

—— Daily Telegraph

Child presses all the buttons... Another awesome performance

—— Mark Sanderson , The Scotsman

Brings a shock of moral horror that is unprecedented in Reacher novels

—— Toronto Star

Utterly compelling... one of Child's best. He keeps up the lightning pace, great writing and punchy one-liners throughout

—— Daily Express

A contender for top thriller of 2010

—— Sun (Best books of 2010)

A turbo-charged page-flipper: you're on page 300 before you take a breath...Child is a master of distances, spaces and the physics of opposing forces

—— The Scotsman

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