Vices of My Blood

Henry G. MacLeod teaches sociology at Trent University and the
University of Waterloo.

The sixth Detective Murdock mystery takes the reader into the Dickensian
side of Victorian Toronto in the winter of 1896. The pastor of Chalmers
Presbyterian Church, the Reverend Charles Howard, has been found
brutally murdered in his office by one of his parishioners. His missing
watch and boots and the sighting of a tramp near the church convince
most people that he was attacked and robbed by a casual vagrant when
refused assistance. William Murdock, finally a full detective, is not so
ready to blame a down-and-outer even though his investigation initially
leads him to the local workhouse.

As a visitor for the House of Industry, Howard determined whether the
poor and needy deserved charitable relief. Murdock interviews four
applicants that Howard recently rejected and might have angered. Murdock
then enlists the help of a trio of “queer plungers” (a term for
fraud artists who fake injuries or robberies to solicit money from
sympathetic bystanders) to unravel the mystery by going undercover at
the House of Industry.

This series gets stronger with each book. Jennings does an excellent
job of weaving historical detail into her police procedural. She brings
alive the everyday world of the poor and destitute in the 1890s. One is
left looking forward to the next instalment.