From a Surgeon’s Diary

Meet the widow anxious to bury her husband before the autopsy, the artist who’s brushes have never been used, the bedridden drunk who contracts lead poisoning from a pub miles away. These strange stories are designed to baffle the mind and entertain the crime buff and newcomer alike. Set in the early days of the nineteenth century, the six tales here take place in various parts of rural England — wherever the young physician-detective’s assignments take him.