Product Description

In Edinburgh, 1886, the brutal murder of a university professor, coming soon after the killing of a retired lighthouse keeper and quickly followed by a bizarre exhumation, has the entire city on edge. Carus Groves, a conceited and prejudiced police inspector, is assigned the case. Baffled by the superhuman strength required to rip two men apart and drag up a coffin, Groves latches on to the odd behaviour of an anguished young woman, Evelyn Todd, who claims to have dreamed of the crimes in great detail. Meanwhile, two unlikely friends - Thomas McKnight, a jaded Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, and Joseph Canavan, a compassionate cemetery attendant - are drawn inexorably towards Evelyn and the secrets of her tormented psyche. They discover her extraordinary imagination was violently suppressed in childhood, but in her dreams she retains the image of 'the lamplighter' - whose presence outside her orphanage she heard each evening, and whose face is concoction of all the friendly men she knew. Evelyn now insists the killer is this lamplighter. And as a strange beast gallops through Edinburgh's misty alleys, and Groves's investigation flounders, McKnight and Canavan use the only weapons they possess - reason, logic, intuition, philosophy and sheer luck - to unearth the secrets buried in the dark recesses of Evelyn's mind...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1624389 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
The streets of 19th-century Edinburgh are drenched in blood, stalked by a diabolical force that tears its victims apart with an inhuman violence. There have been four murders, all seemingly unlinked, and Inspector Groves, who had been looking forward to retirement after an undistinguished career, finds himself clueless. His only lead is a growing suspicion that the waiflike girl who repeatedly claims that she has dreamed of the attacks is somehow involved. Meanwhile, an elderly college lecturer and his friend are conducting their own investigation into the killings. Professor McKnight believes that the application of logic and philosophy will lead them to the perpetrator, aided and abetted by young Canavan's intuitive faith. But when a page from the young man's Bible is found stuffed in the mouth of a desecrated corpse, they begin to realize that this is more than murder - this is vengeance. None of them are as yet aware that the real crime was committed two decades ago, inflicted on a defenceless orphan, whose only sin was an overactive imagination. Taken to a deserted hunting lodge, she is kept prisoner, visited by no one but her captors and a mysterious African priest, until the fateful night when she meets the lamplighter and her destiny is sealed. But more evil awaits and her worst nightmares cannot prepare her for the final, brutal atrocity that is to be inflicted on her... and the subsequent carnage that will sweep Edinburgh, opening up the Gates of Hell themselves. This Gothic crime fantasy is superbly realized - O'Neill's rich, often macabre narrative paints a theatrical backdrop of a dark, festering city, frequented by Gormenghastian characters, creating a thick, menacing atmosphere of corruption and darkness. The plot twists and turns, leading to a sensational finale that is apocalyptic in its realization. Read this by candlelight with the curtains drawn tight shut. (Kirkus UK)

Quintin Jardine
'It's a remarkable work, full of erudition and beautifully written. It's also the darkest thing I've read since Peter Ackroyd's HAWKSMOOR'

Kirkus Reviews
'As terrifying as a child's nightmares - and as wonderful as waking from them'

Customer Reviews

Someone's gotta do it
A few points in response to the reader review immediately below. "Perambulation" is a common term in Victorian literature (and is used in the text half-mockingly in any case). An online search throws up the expression "my good chap" in works by George Orwell, P.G. Wodehouse, Herbert Jenkins, Edith Nesbit, Jules Verne and Arthur Schnitzler (the last two in translation, of course). The word "bipedal" is used initially in a scientific context, during a university lecture, and the later usage is an echo of that. As for "positively bestial" and "transgression" -- I can't see any need to defend them.
The book isn't perfect, in prose or content, but doesn't warrant triumphant nitpicking ("never heard nor read", on the other hand, should strictly speaking be "never heard or read").

Ambitious novel, mediocre writer
The Lamplighter certainly deserves applause for the sheer originality of its premise and for the reach of its ambition. Perhaps because of this the book suffers from a mediocre execution by Mr O'Neill.

The character of Evelyn evokes the reader's emotion, but is ultimately a cliche. The philosophical dialogues contain genuinely thought-provoking ideas, but often clunk along. In order to heighten the intellectual 'leaps' that our protagonist makes, Mr O'Neill employs the common and crude device of making every policeman that we meet dull-witted (and generally dislikeable to boot). Inspector Groves is the most blind and stupid in the whole investigation despite being a highly experienced detective, while McKnight, our amateur protagonist, touches the heart of the matter with Holmesian alacrity. Indeed, the greatest failing of the book may be the characterisation of McKnight, the most clichéd and unbelievable of all the characters. The dialogue given to this character is nothing less than dreadful. The content of McKnight's discourse is thoroughly challenging intellectually, but ruined by the spectacularly poor cod-Dickensian language in which it is framed. Read any Victorian author and even the most pompous characters will at least speak in a believable register, but O'Neil's woeful attempt at Victorian dialogue has to be waded through: walks become perambulations, murders are 'positively bestial', humans are bipedals, crimes become transgressions, and I have never heard nor read anyone refer to a friend as 'my good chap'. All too often, Mr O'Neill writes as if English were his second language.

The (anti-) climactic descent at the finale explicitly draws its parallel from Dante, but Mr O'Neill repeatedly goes to great lengths to give us descriptions of Gothic and Romanesque buildings only to have his characters walk swiftly through unmolested and with practically no interaction with the denizens at all.

Overall, The Lamplighter is a good read and one of the most original novels I have come across. It attempts to present genuinely stimulating ideas about the nature of reality and what it means to be good or evil, and for this it should be applauded. However, the execution too often reads like a poor pastiche of a Conan Doyle story, and I cannot help feeling that a better writer could have made a much better job of such an excellent plot.

Murder and Mystery in 19th Century Edinburgh
Anthony O'Neill displays his great gift for story-telling by transporting the reader back to 19th Century Edinburgh. "The Lamplighter" conjures up images of granite tenement blocks, steep steps and twisting alleys. It is easy to lose yourself in this smokey city with its fog and dimly lit streets.
The introduction of a young girl - Evelyn, sets up an aura of intrigue. The action then switches to Chief Inspector Groves trying to solve several murders in the city. The murders are savage and inexplicable but Groves goes about his business with the typical doggedness of a 19th Century policeman.
The unlikely partnership of Canavan (a nightwatchman at a cemetery) and McKnight (a professor at the University) uses science and psychology to try to solve the murders. It is interesting to compare progress in the cases between dogged policework and flighty theories. It reminds me of Holmes v Lestrade.
Anthony O'Neill's background descriptions of the seedier side of life in 19th Century Edinburgh had me peering through the gloom and choking on the smoke.
The finale is a terrifying flight through falling beams, Gothic buildings and bas-reliefs - reminiscent of the horrifying descriptions by HP Lovecraft.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it is intriguing and spell-binding,with more twists than the alleyways of Edinburgh.