Shocking Deceptions
In Book 9, Penrose and Pyke’s hopes of a quieter life are dashed by a spate of baffling burglaries and a persuasive charlatan promoting a miracle cure.
Dunedin society is up in arms as their valuables vanish without a trace from locked homes. Although the trail leads to an apparent dead end, private detective Charlie Penrose Pyke catches the scent of a shadowy figure lurking behind the scenes.
Meanwhile, Grace Penrose Pyke’s curiosity leaves her in a precarious position with life-changing consequences, after she is drawn into an investigation of dubious medical devices. Their combined talents will be needed to unravel this pair of shocking deceptions.
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Inspiration
The ninth Penrose & Pyke Mystery, Shocking Deceptions, delves into the late nineteenth century fervour for all things electric.
Marvellous inventions, such as like electric lights, were causing a stir in 1890s Dunedin.
Retailers were quick to exploit the excitement to show off their wares to best advantage, as in this 1894 advertisement from the Evening Star (Source: Papers Past, National Library).
Domestic electricity arrived later in Dunedin, although household arc lamps had already been invented, only to be superseded by incandescent lamps.
The images show lamps from 1902 (Source: https://www.buildmagazine.org.nz/articles/show/electric-lamps)
But where there is money to be made, there is always a dark side, and plenty of charlatans were jumping on the electricity bandwagon to make their fortune. In the story, a new doctor in town is promoting the latest fad for medical electro-therapeutic devices, and Grace and Charlie have to figure out if he is a miracle worker or dangerous charlatan.
These examples of real devices from the Wellcome Collection (Source: https://wellcomecollection.org/works) include advertisements for the electropathic belt featured in the story. Battery-operated electrodes were available for all parts of the body for in-home and physician use, promising cures for an astonishing array of conditions by revitalising the body’s natural electricity.
Purveyors of such devices conducted public demonstrations, such as the one featured in this Otago Daily Times article (Source: Papers Past, National Library). Suffice to say, hype and razzmatazz were all part of the show.
Electricity could be terrifying too.
Who could read this article and not be riveted and revolted by the dreadful death of a linesman by electrocution? (Evening Star, 1895, Papers Past, National Library)
No wonder many Victorians feared to have electricity in their homes!
Readers of the Penrose & Pyke series will be familiar with the hilly terrain of Dunedin and the Town Belt ring of greenery around the city. Cable cars were a handy innovation to take people up the steep hills (Source: Hocken Library).
The advertisement for Speight’s Brewery, which gets a fleeting cameo in the story, shows a tiny cable car running up Rattray Street past the smoke-belching brewery (Source: National Library of NZ).
The Town Belt is still feature of modern Dunedin, thank goodness, and more verdant than ever. The photo shows Queen’s Drive, which traverses the hillside through the bush.
Some of the domestic innovations in the story were inspired by the marvellous Olveston, which was build the following decade, in the Edwardian era. Well worth a visit if you are in Dunedin (https://www.olveston.co.nz/).
Rose Pascoe 