The Great Stink

THE GREAT STINK

William May returns to London after the horrors of the Crimean War. Scarred and fragile though he is, he lands a job at the heart of Bazalgette's transformation of the London sewers. There, in the darkness of the stinking tunnels beneath the rising towers of Victorian London, May discovers another side of the city and remembers a disturbing, violent past.

And then the corruption of the growing city soon begins to overwhelm him and a violent murder is committed. Will the sewers reveal all and show that the world above ground is even more dark and threatening than the tunnels beneath?

Beautifully written, evocative and compelling, with a fantastically vivid cast of characters, Clare Clark's first book is a rich and suspenseful novel that draws the reader right into Victorian London and into the worlds of its characters desperately attempting to swim the tides of change.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY

'Evocative, deeply researched and thoroughly enjoyable...oozes with the stench of humanity and the secret history of subterranean Victorian London'

Simon Sebag-Montefiore

'Staggeringly evocative...a fine new novelist'

Margaret Forster

‘The most exquisite of bookish pleasures. Draw the curtains, light the fire, unplug the phone.’

Time Out

‘Reminiscent of Dickens at his most brooding. One of the best British novels of 2005.’

Literary Review

‘Beautifully written, evocative and compelling, with a fantastically vivid cast of characters, Clare Clark's first book is a rich and suspenseful novel that draws the reader right into Victorian London and into the worlds of its characters desperately attempting to swim the tides of change.'

Evening Standard

‘Powerful writing, intensely readable. Clark has talent and passion.'

Independent on Sunday