The Patient's Eyes

As a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle, famously studied under the pioneering forensic detective Dr. Joseph Bell. Taking this as a starting point, author David Pirie has woven a compelling thriller which partners Bell (widely believed to be the model for Sherlock Holmes himself) and Doyle as innovators in criminal investigation, exploring the strange underworld of violence and sexual hypocrisy running below the surface of the Victorian era. When the impoverished young Arthur Doyle opens his first medical practice, he is puzzled by the symptoms presented by Heather Grace, a sweet young woman whose parents have died tragically several years before. Heather has a strange eye complaint, but is also upset by visions of a phantom bicyclist who vanishes as soon as he is followed. This enigma, however, is soon overshadowed as Doyle finds himself embroiled in more threatening events-including the murder of a rich Spanish businessman-that call for the advice of the eminent Dr Bell. But despite coming to Doyle's aid, Dr Bell dismisses the murder of Senor Garcia as a rather unimportant diversion from the incident which Bell considers to have real criminal implications: the matter of th