Book cover: Edinburgh 1886. Two brutal murders and a bizarre exhumation have the city of edge, and conceited inspector Carus Groves is assigned the case. Baffled by the evidence of superhuman strength, Groves focuses on an anguished young woman, Evelyn Todd, who claims to have dreamed of the crimes. Meanwhile Thomas McKnight, a jaded Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, and Joseph Canavan, a compassionate cemetery attendant, are similarly drawn towards Evelyn. They discover her extraordinary imagination was violently suppressed in childhood, but her dreams retain the image of the lamplighter who brightened the street outside her orphanage. Evelyn now insists the killer is this lamplighter. And as a strange beast gallops through Edinburgh’s misty alleys, and Grove’s investigation flounders, McKnight and Canavan use the only weapons they possess – reason, logic, intuition, philosophy and sheer luck – to unearth the secrets buried in the dark recesses of Evelyn’s mind.

It’s been almost impossible to put this book down, it’s a rousing assault on the senses. In The Lamplighter a deep need for hope, rescue and recovery suffuses this intrigue of mystery and resurfacing trauma. A face of Edinburgh, not so very distant from now is drawn with a tangibly atmospheric feel of the real place. It’s 1886 when the streets of Edinburgh begin to hiss and cackle with fear when a bloody killer swiftly strikes down Professor Smeaton of Ecclesiastical Law, viciously tearing his body apart and flinging it to the four winds. Might there be another victim and if so - whom?

The vulnerability of loneliness, glorious imagination, bitter greed, moral dilemma, vaulting ambition, dastardly deeds, heartless abandonment, innocence betrayed, eternal damnation, unconditional love, heroic protection, a need for redemption, selfless acts, all these issues and more skitter across this bold canvas. There’s a lot going on in this deftly-written, multi-layered tale and Anthony O’Neill certainly has an unerring sense for the right word. Replete with wisdom and remarkably light despite a dependence on the philosophies of logic and theology used to solve the mysteries, this tale rings clear with the mark of effective research. Looming shadows from Georgian and even older architecture are cast dark and heavy, the clip of working boots and the buzz of metalled wheels echo on the stone setts of the street, a stench sour and pungent of too many living with poor sanitation assaults, and the haar from the sea and the fog from Waverley railway station permeate the pages. This definitely had me on the very edge of my seat. I am almost loath to give this book away it being one of the few books that crosses my path that I would consider re-reading feeling sure I would get even more out of it on second reading.

However my house is groaning with – far too many – books and I’m currently on a mission to de-clutter and hey I’m a bookcrosser and that’s all about passing books onto others. In addition I have a plan to release as many books as I can, with Scottish or Edinburgh based; authors or settings, during the Edinburgh Festivals Season in August, so off it goes. I have forgotten to mention the brilliant tiny photographs below each chapter heading, carefully selected they show an actual location for some for the action in that chapter. I was tempted to nip through the book pencilling in the building or street names but I am very reluctant to write in books. The photographs look contemporary with the setting of the book and are a brilliant addition to the presentation.

Oh, I love surprises, especially if they come in the shape of a book and highly recommended by one of my favourite bookcrossers :)
Thanks so much for this RABCK, if I hadn't already three bookrays to go through, I would surely start it straight away, as I have found that your taste in thrillers is very much mine, too :)
Off it goes on the TBR pile...but at the very top, just after the rings and rays! Thanks again!

Time to give this one a go...it's been buried in my library for far too long!