The Anatomy of Deception

“A lucky break for mystery lovers. Fans of historical fiction will also love this tale that evokes the evolving medical profession and the art world in late 19th-century America….
A cameo appearance by painter Thomas Eakins and an exploration of his artistic philosophy add to the novel’s colorful and highly informative background.”

—
USA Today

“Goldstone’s research informs every page.
He weaves history, atmosphere, medical procedures, and forensic details into a fascinating story….”

—
Boston Globe

“Vivid period setting and amazing medical detail.”

—Marilyn Stasio,
New York Times Book Review

“An increasingly complex tale of murder, body-snatching, and skullduggery … A clever and entertaining tale.”

—
Los Angeles Times

“Packed with historical asides.”

—
Entertainment Weekly

“If you enjoyed
The Interpretation of Murder
, you’ll be gripped by this
haunting and atmospheric
thriller.”

—Tess Gerritsen

“This is really good stuff…. A must-read.”

—
The Gazette
(Montreal)

“Compelling …
With this top-notch historical page-turner and his proven versatility in nonfiction, Goldstone can expect to win over many new fans.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“What makes [Goldstone’s] book so fascinating is the attention to the medical procedures and innovations of the time…. Readers
who enjoy Anne Perry’s and Caleb Carr’s psychological thrillers will welcome Goldstone’s brooding, paranoiac addition to the genre.”

—
Booklist

“For audiences increasingly drawn to
CSI
-type murder mysteries, Lawrence Goldstone reminds them that crime fighting can be just as gripping without all the high-tech wizardry.
The Anatomy of
Deception
is
an intriguing tale of death and dishonesty that takes the reader through 19th-century Philadelphia during the infancy of modern medicine…
.
[Anatomy
will] hold a reader’s attention from the first page to the last.”

—Associated Press

“An intriguing tale of death and dishonesty.”

—
London Free Press

“Will appeal to readers who enjoy historical novels or have an interest in medical history.”

—
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Intelligent and clever
… Will have you living in their times, on their terms, and rooting hard for the honorable people at their centers—outnumbered, as honorable people often are, but not necessarily overwhelmed.”

—
Sullivan County Democrat

“Goldstone has blended the history of the scientific process with compelling suspense to provide an intriguing read.”

—
MLB News

“The
vividly described medical procedures of the time create a fascinating background
to this forensics whodunit…. Style and imagination … Compelling suspense.”

—
Mystery Scene

Dark Bargain

with Nancy Goldstone
Deconstructing Penguins
The Friar and the Cipher
Out of the Flames
Warmly Inscribed
Slightly Chipped
Used and Rare

F
OR DAYS, CLOUDS HAD HUNG
over the frigid city, promising snow, an ephemeral late winter veneer of white, but the temperature had suddenly risen and a cold, stinging drizzle had arrived instead. Jostled along in the derelict hansom, clad in her maid’s blue worsted dress and plain wool cloak, her fingers and feet felt bloodless. The gloom that hung over the river penetrated the thin walls of the coach until it seemed as though she were breathing it
.

She tried to peer out but rain obscured the dirty window. The gas streetlamps were set so far apart that what little she could see came sporadically, in brief flashes. She had no idea where she was, and she wanted desperately to pound on the trap and tell the driver to turn around. She could hear the beating of her own heart
.

As the last haze of daylight vanished, the carriage turned. When she was very young, she had hated the dark, but here
there would be no sympathetic, whispering adult rushing to comfort her. The cab slowed, the driver making his way carefully on the rutted streets. An odor of filth and decrepitude be-fouled the air
.

Finally, the driver reined the horse to a halt and she could hear his muffled voice telling her she had arrived. It was the first time in her life that she had ever been so alone
.

It was also the first time that she had ever been truly afraid
.

A
T
C
HRISTMAS
1887,
FIFTEEN MONTHS
before this story began, the world was introduced to a fictional character destined for such immeasurable acclaim that he would overwhelm his creator’s efforts to be done with him. The essence of this character’s appeal was not derring-do, as in the dime novels of Beadle & Adams, but rather in his uncanny ability to unravel a set of data that had stumped lesser men and proceed to a logical and incisive conclusion. He was so coldly rational that he was often compared to a machine, the Analytical Engine of Charles Babbage. His name, of course, was Sherlock Holmes.

To those of us engaged in medical research, however, the remarkable methods of Conan Doyle’s consulting detective were not at all revolutionary—they were merely a popularization of the
modus operandi
we employed in our quotidian efforts to alleviate human misery. The connection of analytic detection to medicine was unmistakable. Doyle himself was a physician, as were both Joseph Bell, widely considered the model for the character, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, the man for whom the detective was named. And while Sherlock Holmes may have trod the back alleys of Victorian London to ply his trade, the scenes of our crimes were no less exotic and often even more grisly.

To make sense of nature’s felonies against the human body, you see, physicians are compelled to study not only the living, but also those who have succumbed. Our clues lie in
internal organs, blood vessels, skin, hair, and fluids, and we need as much access to these as Holmes needed to footprints, handwriting, or hotel records. It is only through painstaking examination of the data wrung from this evidence that deductions may be made as to what has caused illness and death, which, in turn, aids immeasurably in the care and treatment of those who might still be saved.

As Holmes’ popularity soared, it thus became sport among physicians to match wits with the fictional detective, eager to demonstrate that if they applied themselves to murder, theft, and mayhem, they would achieve similarly sterling results. Although for most in the medical field, this exercise was nothing more than a diverting parlor amusement, for me, the game was to be all too real. It started early on a mid-March Thursday in 1889, when I strode through the gate in the high stone wall at the rear of University Hospital in West Philadelphia and entered the Blockley Dead House.

The Dead House, the morgue that served both University Hospital and Philadelphia General, was a squat, solitary brick building, a fetid vault filled with cadavers in various states of putrefaction. The air was thick and still, and heavy drapes were pulled shut day and night. It was a place of spirits, where the tortured souls of hundreds, perhaps thousands, who had died from abuse, disease, want, or ignorance would spend their last moments in the company of the living before they were removed for their solitary rest and placed in the ground forever. I have never been a believer in phantoms, but I could not walk through its door without feeling all of those abbreviated lives pressing down upon me.

But this grim way station was also a place of science. In this incongruous setting, Dr. William Osler, head of Clinical Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, forced forward the boundaries of medical knowledge. Although not yet forty, Dr. Osler had transformed the Dead
House into perhaps the most exciting and advanced laboratory for the science of morbid anatomy in the entire world. I had given up private practice in Chicago and come East specifically for the chance to work and study with this astounding man. Apprenticing to Newton or Boyle or Leeuwenhoek could not have been more exciting. Others would call Dr. Osler the modern-day Hippocrates, but to me he was simply “the Professor.”

I arrived at the hospital that morning poised for a journey into the unknown, no less than Stanley at the threshold of Zanzibar. In the changing room, I replaced my suit with the trousers, pants, and cap that were provided to the staff. The outfits were faded and blue, with a military air. A persistent rumor had them as leftovers from the late Civil War, and I often wondered if my father had once been dressed in just this way.

I was soon joined by those of my colleagues also invited to observe. There were nine of us that morning, a study in contrast. Some, like me, were experienced physicians; others had just begun internship. Most were products of Philadelphia or other large cities, although I myself had been raised on a small farm in southern Ohio. One of us was even a woman. Mary Simpson had been included at the Professor’s insistence, despite the extreme disapproval of anonymous members of the board of trustees who had been scandalized by such an affront to nature. Two Georges epitomized our differences. Farnshaw, at twenty-one the youngest of our group, had been raised in great wealth and came to study with the Professor after graduation from Harvard; Turk, at twenty-eight the oldest, was the product of an orphanage, and had worked his way through the university unloading merchant vessels on the Philadelphia docks.