From master storyteller and acclaimed author of 'Scheherazade', Anthony O'Neill, comes a mesmerising new novel.
In misty 19th Century Edinburgh a headstrong orphan girl is taken to a hunting lodge and sacrificed to a mysterious figure - "the lamplighter". Twenty years later four prominent men are brutally murdered. What monster is responsible? Is there a connection between the victims? And what of the orphan girl, now an anguished young woman, who claims to have dreamt the murders, and repeatedly blames "the lamplighter"?
Leading the official investigation is Carus Groves, an aging and conceited police inspector. Leading the unofficial investigation are Thomas McKnight, a philosophy professor and his young assistant, the Irish cemetery attendant, Joseph Canavan.
Using all the talents at their disposal - reason, logic, intuition, philosophy and sheer luck - these men independently unveil the secret of the young woman's torment, and in doing so penetrate the very Gates of Hell . . .
'The Lamplighter' is a Gothic mystery, a magical realist horror thriller, a satire of Victorian manners, a philosophical inquiry into the nature of reality, and a ripping good read!
