The Death of Shame

1854, Edinburgh. Respectable faces hide private sins. Apprentice Sarah Fisher is helping to fund Dr Will Raven’s emerging medical practice in exchange for being secretly trained as a medic, should the rules barring women ever change. Sarah needs no instruction in the inequalities that beset her gender, but even she has her eyes opened to a darker reality when a relative seeks her help in searching for her missing daughter. Annabel Banks was promised a situation in a prestigious household, but there has been no word from her since she left home, and the agency that arranged her position says she never appeared. Sarah’s inquiries lead her to campaigners publicising the plight of the girls ensnared in Edinburgh’s houses of assignation. Drawing upon real historical events, ‘The Death of Shame’ takes Raven and Sarah into a labyrinth of exploitation, corruption, and immorality.