Greg Fleming reviews The Shape of Darkness, by Laura Purcell

The Shape of Darkness, by Laura Purcell

The Shape of Darkness
by Laura Purcell
(Raven Books, $33)
Reviewed by Greg Fleming

Laura Purcell has made a name for herself writing entertaining historical mysteries that are well researched and intricately plotted, without sacrificing a thriller's narrative drive.

Additionally Purcell scatters through her stories period-specific trends and beliefs. An earlier novel, The Corset, explored the practice of phrenology – the erroneous belief popular in the 19th century that a person's entire character could be read in the shape of their skull.

Here, she focuses on another little-remembered practice – making her lead protagonist Agnes Darken a struggling silhouette artist (prior to the advent of photography, silhouette profiles cut from black card were a popular way of recording a person's appearance). The novel also explores the fringe science of mesmerism and forms of spiritualism which were popular in the Victorian age.

When we meet her, things aren't looking good for Agnes – her health has been compromised by a recent bout with pneumonia. She's also caring for an elderly mother and is well aware that she is in a sunset industry and "one of a dying breed".

Her only companions are a troubled nephew, a mysterious physician and brother-in-law, Simon, who prescribes her nightly opiate, and a dog named Morpheus.

Purcell is adept at capturing a city (Bath, England) in the process of transformation, drawing on contemporary accounts and an 1852 street directory – "The Bath of Agnes's childhood was a city of palaces … the fashionable paraded in the Pump Room by day and danced in the Assembly Rooms by night. There was always a play or a concert in some white stone mansion. Now carbon deposits have stained the buildings, giving them a funeral aspect. Dirt bleeds into the river, into the sky."

When a Sergeant visits to inform Agnes of the death of a recent client, Purcell's plot kicks into action. Agnes immediately recalls the victim, not because he was memorable in any way, but because he was her first customer for months.

When she fishes out the silhouette of him she had been working on she's horrified to discover that "it looks exactly as if it has been hit with a mallet".

As the number of victims mounts, Agnes turns to a child spirit medium in order to get some explanation but they soon realise they may have opened the door on to forces beyond their control.

Or is the killer closer to home?