1854 Edinburgh. Respectable faces hide private sins. Apprentice Sarah Fisher is helping
fund Dr Will Raven's emerging medical practice in exchange for being secretly trained as a
doctor. Sarah needs no instruction in the inequalities that beset her gender but even she has
her eyes opened when her help is sought in the search for a missing woman. Annabel Banks was
promised a job in a prestigious household but she never appeared at her employer's house and
there has been no word from her since. Sarah's inquiries lead her to discover the plight of
hundreds of girls ensnared in Edinburgh's many brothels: lured abused and left ruined in the
eyes of a society obsessed with moral purity. Meanwhile when a prominent society figure throws
himself from the Scott Monument Raven is asked to establish whether the death was indeed
suicide and if so what might have driven this highly successful man to take his own life.
Drawing upon real historical events The Death of Shame takes Raven and Sarah into a
treacherous labyrinth of exploitation corruption and high-level complicity. In a world where
people are the prisoners of their secrets the death of shame is the only path to liberty.
