First Line Friday #6

My choice for this week comes from A Fever of the Blood by Oscar De Muriel, a book that keeps moving lower down my tbr rather than higher. I thoroughly the enjoyed the first book in this series but for some reason I don’t seem to get around to reading this one, even though I have a paperback copy on my bookshelf.

“Open the curtains, ” Lord ambrose demanded, almost gagging from the effort. ” I need to see them die.”

New Year’s Day, 1889. In Edinburgh’s lunatic asylum, a patient escapes as a nurse lays dying. Leading the manhunt are legendary local Detective ‘Nine-Nails’ McGray and Londoner-in-exile Inspector Ian Frey. Before the murder, the suspect was heard in whispered conversation with a fellow patient – a girl who had been mute for years. What made her suddenly break her silence? And why won’t she talk again? Could the rumours about black magic be more than superstition? McGray and Frey track a devious psychopath far beyond their jurisdiction, through the worst blizzard in living memory, into the shadow of Pendle Hill – home of the Lancashire witches – where unimaginable danger awaits…