In the tradition of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist and Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club, this mesmerizing forensic thriller thrusts the reader into the operating rooms, drawing rooms, and back alleys of 1889 Philadelphia, as a doctor grapples with the principles of scientific process to track a daring killer.

In the morgue of a Philadelphia hospital, physicians uncover the corpse of a beautiful young woman. What they see takes their breath away. Within days, one doctor, Ephraim Carroll, strongly suspects that he knows the woman’s identity. . .and the horrifying events that led to her death. But in this richly atmospheric debut novel – an ingenious blend of history, suspense, and early forensic science – the most compelling chapter is yet to come, as the young doctor is plunged into a maze of murder, secrets, and unimaginable crimes.

Peopled with vibrant real-life characters such as Canadian William Osler, hailed as the Father of Modern Medicine; famed surgeon William Stewart Halsted, who performed the first emergency blood transfusion and invented surgical gloves; and the controversial painter Thomas Eakins, The Anatomy of Deception brings to life a little-known and exciting turning-point in American medical history, when ignorant butchery gave way to intelligent surgery–and a young doctor is forced to confront an agonizing moral choice between exposing a killer, undoing a wrong, and, quite possibly, protecting the future of medicine itself.

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"You’ll be gripped by this haunting and atmospheric thriller." –Tess Gerritsen

"Compelling…. [A] top-notch historical page-turner." –Publishers Weekly, starred review

"What makes his book so fascinating is the attention to the medical procedures and innovations of the time ... Readers who enjoy Anne Perry’s and Caleb Carr’s psychological thrillers will welcome Goldstone’s brooding, paranoiac addition to the genre." –Booklist

"Colorful and highly informative....Evokes the evolving medical profession and the art world in late-nineteenth-century America." –USA Today

"An intriguing tale of death and dishonesty." –London Free Press

"A clever and entertaining tale...set in the surgical theatres and medical research halls of late-nineteenth-century Philadelphia and Baltimore." –Los Angeles Times Book Review

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Lawrence Goldstone, with his wife, Nancy, is the author of two critically acclaimed narrative histories of medicine and anatomy. He has written for the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Miami Herald. He lives in Westport, Connecticut.

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