The Wages of Sin

In Welsh’s moving, nuanced first novel, a late Victorian whodunit, Sarah Gilchrist decides to make a new start after an acquaintance sexually assaults her, a traumatic experience that her proper family views as a source of shame. Sarah moves from London to Edinburgh to attend medical school, where she’s bullied by her male colleagues and shunned by some of her female ones. In addition to keeping up with her studies, Sarah assists at Saint Giles’s Infirmary for Women and Children, a clinic for the indigent. Lucy Collins, a pregnant prostitute, seeks an abortion at Saint Giles’s, but the director sends her away. Four nights later, Sarah is shocked to see that the body in the medical school dissection room is Lucy’s. Her professor suggests death was caused by a laudanum overdose, but Sarah notices bruises and other marks that suggest Lucy was assaulted, reminding her of her own victimization. Superior characterizations and convincing period detail make up for the routine sleuthing that ensues. Agent: Laura Macdougall, Tibor Jones & Associates (U.K.). (Mar.)