Unseemly Science

Abstract

In the divided land of England, Elizabeth Barnabus has been living a double life – as both herself and as her brother, the private detective. Witnessing the brutal hanging of someone very close to her, Elizabeth resolves to throw the Bullet Catcher’s Handbook into the fire, and forget her past. If only it were that easy!

There is a new charitable organisation in town, run by some highly respectable women. But something doesn’t feel right to Elizabeth. Perhaps it is time for her fictional brother to come out of retirement for one last case? Her unstoppable curiosity leads her to a dark world of body-snatching, unseemly experimentation, politics and scandal. Never was it harder for a woman in a man’s world…

“Books work on several levels. A good story is complete in itself yet, at the same time, reading is a dynamic process: readers are not passive consumers of words. I’ve no idea what Duncan intended when writing, other than to invent a world and tell a story. Yet, for this reader at least, the subtexts and resonances of a divided Britain run by capricious aristocrats and politicians with vested interests were as entertaining as the story.”

– Heroines of Fantasy