★★★★☆ Myrtle takes on forensic medicine

In Myrtle Peril

Elizabeth C. Bunce

In the title of Elizabeth C. Bunce's In Myrtle Peril, we are branching out a bit. Instead of the assonance of "Myrtle" and "murder," here we are here exploiting the similar sounds of "Myrtle" and "mortal, which works even better than "murder."

Plotwise, there are two things going on here. First, Myrtle's father Arthur has tonsillitis. He's reluctant to go to the hospital to be treated, which was a far more reasonable attitude towards medicine in 1894 than it is in 2025. However, general anesthesia with ether is now a possibility. Even more important, the germ theory of disease has arrived on the scene, and Joseph Lister has been advocating antiseptic surgery. So, although tonsillectomy is dangerous and unpleasant, it is not the horror it was even a few years earlier.

The second thing going on is the revival of an old insurance case, having to do with the loss at sea of the Persephone. Settling the problem will require finding the heir to the Snowcroft title and lands. A claimant has appeared from Australia, the intended destination of the vanished Persephone.

Thus we have Arthur stuck in the hospital ostensibly recovering from surgery. He witnesses what he believes to be a murder at the hospital, but he was under the influence of morphine at the time, so we are not quite sure it really happened. Meanwhile Myrtle and Miss Judson attempt to continue the investigation of the Snowcroft claimant. Myrtle thus gets to indulge her interest in medical forensics, or, as she calls it, Medico-Legal Investigation. We have the usual fun with footnotes, and there are sneaky references to Three Men in a Boat.

So, yeah, this was fun. A worthy addition to the canon.

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