Excerpt from The Bedlam Detective

Am I still working on my Nanowrimo novel? You bet! 48,212 words in. While the official goal of Nano is 50,000 words, my goal is 125,000 words, so I’m not as close as you may think.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, read the rules at A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along!

I have just finished The Bedlam Detective by Stephen Gallagher. A fascinating psychological thriller revolving around madness. Right up my alley.

“Two children are missing,” the cook said.

Sebastian abruptly laid down his pen.

“Tell me more,” he said.

“Oh, it’s probably something and nothing,” she said.

Stephen Gallagher, The Bedlam Detective

bedlam twitterFrom a basement office in London’s notorious Bethlehem Hospital, Sebastian Becker investigates wealthy eccentrics whose dubious mental health may render them unable to manage their own affairs. His interview with rich landowner Sir Owain Lancaster, whose sanity has been in question since a disastrous scientific adventure in the Amazon killed his family and colleagues, coincides with the disappearance of two young local girls. When the children are found slain, Lancaster claims that the same dark forces that devastated his family have followed him home. It is not the first time that children have come to harm in his rural countryside town, though few are willing to speak of incidents from the past. Becker must determine whether this mad nobleman is insane and a murderer, or if some even more sinister agency is at work.

Struggling on his small salary, and with unexpected help from a son who needs special care, Becker and his wife make sacrifices so Becker can stay on the case after an innocent man is convicted of the crime. The answers he seeks may be found with the assistance of the local investigator and a young suffragette who fled Arnmouth, but couldn’t flee the horrors she encountered there.

From dank asylums to the lush and treacherous Amazon, through the makeshift studios of the early film industry and a traveling fair of freaks and illusions, Sebastian Becker’s search for answers brings him face to face with madmen and monsters, both imagined and real. Confronting immense danger in his hunt for the truth, he will explore murder, tragedy, and the tempestuous depths of his own mind.

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