New York: Harcourt, Inc., (2005) dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's very highly praised first novel, long-listed for the Orange Prize. "When engineer William May, an emotionally fragile Crimean War veteran, descends into the noxious sewers of mid-Victorian London to assess the feasibility of the massive sewer repairs prompted by the cholera epidemic of 1855, he experiences a measure of psychological relief in the putrid privacy of the dangerously crumbling sewage tunnels. As his tenuous mental equilibrium begins to slip, he is framed for a brutal underground murder and eventually begins to doubt his own innocence. With both his life and his sanity on the line, he must rely on self--proclaimed sewer-rat Long-Arm Tom to unravel an intricate web of deceit and corruption." (ALA) 396 pp plus author's note. ISBN: 0-151011613.