A Cold-Blooded Scoundrel

Michael Payne is the City of Edmonton archivist and the co-author of A
Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

This novel marks the debuts of Detective Inspector Philip Devlin and
Constable Freddie Collins. The story is set in late Victorian London,
and Devlin and Collins are trying to solve a series of killings that
begin with the rather grisly murder of a male prostitute. Following hard
on the heels of the Jack the Ripper murders, this second wave of murders
by a cunning sexual psychopath has the London police in as much of a fog
as the Ripper.

Devlin takes a much greater interest in the science of crime than was
usual in the period, and he has other distinctive characteristics as
well. He is gay, though deep in the closet, and much of the story
focuses on the homosexual subculture of late-Victorian London.
Devlin’s sexuality also drives the main subplots, which include his
growing relationship with Constable Collins, who is also gay and
secretly attached to Devlin, and a possible marriage of convenience
between Devlin and Phoebe Alcock. Miss Alcock knows Devlin’s secret,
and she is interested in marrying him to mask her own same-sex
relationship with Violet Pearson. Compounding the complexity of the
story, Violet happens to be the sister of the killer, and the killer has
a secret past with Devlin.

This is not a traditional mystery. It falls much closer to the police
procedural pole of detective fiction. The killer is known virtually from
the start, and the main storyline involves how Devlin tracks and finally
brings his quarry to a kind of justice. The subplots are very complex
and rely on a remarkable degree of coincidence. There is probably enough
plot material here—with a syphilitic arch-criminal, gay policemen,
forensics, and tangled personal lives—to fill four or five novels, and
as a result, some promising aspects of the story could use more
development.

There are more Inspector Devlin novels in the works, and as the series
progresses the author’s obvious familiarity with Victorian social
history could lead Devlin and Collins in some interesting directions.