Allan Gaw’s novel, The Silent House of Sleep, won the 2024 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize, and deservedly so. The historical mystery introduces Dr. Jack Cuthbert in a story that beautifully entwines Cuthbert’s years in medical school in Edinburgh, his time serving in World War I, and a case in post-war London. Cuthbert is a complicated, troubled man. His housekeeper, one of the few people who knows him well, sees him as one of the loneliest man she ever met. The combination of historical forensics, war years, and a complex man makes for an engrossing story.
By December 1928, Dr. Cuthbert is the senior patholgist at St Thomas’s Hospital in London, and the Senior police surgeon with the Metropolitan police. He’s not popular with many of the police officers because he’s meticulous. DS Baker’s boss dislikes him, but Baker likes working with Cuthbert because he “had a reputation for getting it right”. There is no love lost between Detective Inspector Franklin and Cuthbert. Franklin only wants fast results. So, when a college student, Freddie Dawson, goes missing, it’s Franklin’s case. But, the discovery of a body that might be Freddie only frustrates Franklin when Cuthbert can’t give him immediate answers. Fortunately, for both men, Franklin retires before Cuthbert has some answers. Detective Chief Inspector Mowbray steps into a messy case. Despite his reluctance to work with any doctor, he and Cuthbert became allies in solving a mystery involving two unidentified bodies buried in a park. The two intelligent men, although not friends, can work together.
This is a complex case that takes almost a year to solve. There are some gruesome details to the forensics and the case, ones that are sometimes stomach-turning. But, Gaw does a magnificent job telling Jack Cuthbert’s story. While Charles Todd brought Ian Rutledge home from WWI with shell shock and memories that he can’t escape, Gaw takes readers right into Cuthbert’s war. There is vivid imagery, and Cuthbert’s memories haunt him, sometimes bringing him to his knees. “Something inside him was broken, and he doubted any medicine could fix it.” There’s a reason Cuthbert went into pathology and forensics. “Forensic medicine …was an entirely objcetive science that ideally required complete detachment from any emotion.”
The note on the author says Allan Gaw studied medicine at Glasgow and trained as a pathologist. He’s written numerous nonfiction books about medicine and legal consequences. With The Silent House of Sleep, he’s created an unforgettable character in Dr. Jack Cuthbert. It’s an engrossing, riveting story, if a little graphic at times.
Allan Gaw’s website is https://researchet.wordpress.com/about/
The Silent House of Sleep by Allan Gaw. The Mysterious Press, 2026. 288p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I read a galley supplied by the publisher through NetGalley, with no expectation of a positive review.
