Siôn Scott-Wilson, What We Leave Behind (Deixis Press 2023)
Graverobbers Sammy and Facey dig for their living amid the squalor of 18th C London London.
Carrying contraband liquor into Portsmouth Harbour, Sammy and Facey manage to evade the Tide Surveyor. Sammy’s young adopted son, ship’s boy Pure John, has been taken to London, and Sammy’s wife Rosamund is anxious. They need to find the lad before he is hanged for a deserter.
They are pulled into the search for a fabled gemstone. The rare Eye of Brahma black diamond, a ferronière (to be worn on the forehead), was worn into the grave by a Mrs Edith Belmont, making its retrieval within the skillset of the two graverobbers. The mission is all the riskier in that the deceased died of the infectious Asiatic Cholera. And yet the blue tinge of corpse’s skin wipes off with vinegar, and the stone is a fake.
They are drawn into not just a thieving escapade but solving a mystery involving the young heir, William Belmont. Local jewellers come under suspicion as do members of the Belmont staff, Jenkins, Nellie, Mrs Stride and Mrs Parkes.
Rosamund enters the Belmont household, where a poisoner maybe lurks, as governess, and Sammy and Facey enter as plasterers.
Saving the boy means making a sacrifice. The clock-ticking rescue, involving use of a Dandy Horse (early bicycle) and a last-minute crowbar, is quite exciting.
The Voice, mostly that of Sammy, sounds quite authentically 18th century, down to the flowery formality of everyday speech, which is occasionally almost humorous. Even street criminals address each other as ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’, and the dissecters of human cadavers discourse courteously. It dips into the mysterious (and morbid and seedy) world of graverobbing, and we even learn some street gang slang—e.g. ‘karker’ (carcass), ‘dipper’ (pickpocket), ‘stretcher’ (lie), ‘downy’ (shrewd), ‘mazer’ (puzzle), ‘neb’ (nose) ‘glims’ (eyes). The jocular, colloquial banter between the characters sounds authentic.
A beautiful book, which follows on from Some Rise by Sin. This review first appeared in Historical Novels Review.
Susie Helme 
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