The Alchemy of Murder (54 page)

NELLIE BLY

circa 1890

Praise for
The Alchemy of Murder

“
The Alchemy of Murder
showcases an appealingly flesh-and-blood Nellie Bly, one of the first women to break into a man’s world as an adventurous and plucky investigative journalist.”

—
Booklist

“A superb historical mystery told in the first person by the intrepid heroine.”

—
The Mystery Gazette

“This is an entertaining book, and McCleary does a great job of dropping the reader right into the Paris of the late 1800s. Adding real-life authors such as Oscar Wilde and Jules Verne into the mix is just the icing on an incredible cake. We loved this book from cover to cover.”

—
Central Crime Zone

“Carol McCleary cleverly mixes fact and fiction to create a gripping mystery novel. Nellie Bly, intrepid reporter, goes into the madhouse looking for an exposé, and comes out on the trail of a serial killer.”

—
The Province
(Vancouver)

“Packed with historical detail and humor.”

—
Elle
magazine
(U.K.)

“An entertaining mystery, it actually works.”

—
The San Francisco Bay Guardian

“With a trailblazing heroine, a compelling plot, and a masterful melding of fact and fiction,
The Alchemy of Murder
is imaginative, original, and wonderful!”

—Mary Jane Clark,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Dying for Mercy

“Meet Nellie Bly, America’s first female investigative reporter. She’s feisty, funny, opinionated, persistent, and as tough as any male she meets. She has to be because, in
The Alchemy of Murder
, she’s swept through a tale of peril and pursuit that is sure to keep you turning pages long after you should have been asleep. You’ll find yourself on the mean streets of nineteenth-century New York, in Victorian London, and finally in Paris as the Eiffel Tower rises and deadly things—men and microbes—stalk the streets. It’s dazzling entertainment, so well constructed that you’ll want to reread it right after you’re done. All this and it has Oscar Wilde, too!”

—William Martin,
New York Times
bestselling author of
City of Dreams

“
The Alchemy of Murder
is a wonderful evocation of Paris in the late 1880s. Nellie Bly, American investigative reporter, is beautifully re-created here—strong, smart, and believable. With Jules Verne as a sidekick, and Louis Pasteur and Oscar Wilde in major roles, this is a book for everybody.”

—Barbara D’Amato, Mary Higgins Clark Award–winner, past president of both the Mystery Writers of America and the Sisters in Crime International, and winner of the Carl Sandburg Award for Excellence in Fiction

“This is just the kind of book I like—atmospheric, intriguing, rife with drama. What a fabulous debut!”

—Brenda Novak,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Body Heat

“A historical murder mystery with a fantastic bluestocking detective—Nellie Bly, the world’s first female reporter—with cameo roles by Oscar Wilde, Jules Verne, and Louis Pasteur, this is set in Paris in 1889 and is, I hope, the first in a long series.”

—Kate Forsyth, international bestselling author of
The Wildkin’s Curse

“Carol McCleary’s
The Alchemy of Murder
is rollicking good fun. The idea of starring the great Nellie Bly in a novel of suspense is such a natural that it’s a wonder it hasn’t been done before. But if it had, I doubt any other writer would have done it better. A historical period that includes Joseph Pulitzer, Oscar Wilde, Jules Verne, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Jack the Ripper requires an artist of McCleary’s talents to do it justice.”

—Loren D. Estleman, winner of two American Mystery Awards, four Shamus Awards, finalist for the National Book Award, and author of
The Branch and the Scaffold

“What a great idea for a novel. Nellie Bly is one of my favorite characters. This book more than lives up to the drama and suspense that are still part of her aura.”

—Thomas Fleming, president of the Society of American Historians, winner of the Lincoln Prize in History for Lifetime Achievement, and author of the
New York Times
bestseller
The Officers’ Wives

“Gripping, atmospheric, and exciting,
The Alchemy of Murder
takes Victorian mystery and science beyond
The Alienist
by having one of the most amazing women in American history put together a Victorian era
CSI
to battle a deadly plot: Nellie Bly, the world’s first investigative reporter, teams with the great microbe hunter Louis Pasteur, Jules Verne, who invented science fiction, and Oscar Wilde, who shocked even the scandalous Victorians, to combat a threat more menacing than that in
The Hot Zone
.”

—Barbara Wood, #1 international bestselling author of
Hounds and Jackals
, whose books have been translated into thirty languages

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE ALCHEMY OF MURDER

Copyright © 2009 by Carol McCleary

All rights reserved.

A Forge
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eBook

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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New York, NY 10010

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is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 978-0-7653-6175-2

First Edition: March 2010

First Mass Market Edition: March 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-9176-6

First Forge eBook Edition: March 2011

 
*
  A second attempt didn’t fail. President Carnot was murdered by an anarchist in 1894. President McKinley of the United States, Czar Alexander of Russia, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, King Umberto of Italy, Prime Minister Canalejas of Spain, King George I of Greece, and countless others were also assassinated by anarchists. —The Editors.

 
*
  This is a song by Aristride Bruant, Montmartre’s poet-songster. —The Editors.

 
*
  Nellie is not being candid about her education. The story about leaving school because of a “heart problem” was told after she became a famous reporter. School records state Nellie left before completing the
first year
of high school due to financial problems.—The Editors.

 
*
  Nellie subtracted three years off her age to keep a “girl reporter” image. She was twenty-one at the time. Her charade has been successful. Even the
Encyclopedia Britannica
lists her birth date as 1867, rather than the actual date of 1864.—The Editors.

 
*
  Nellie’s Mexican adventures were later published in a book as
Six Months in Mexico.
Always for the underdog, Nellie, while visiting a graveyard in Mexico, saw a tombstone with no name and no epitaph except the initials T.M. Feeling the “loneliness” the grave’s occupant must have felt at having been forgotten, she surreptitiously carved “R.I.P.” on the headstone. It turned out to be the grave of General Tomás Mejía, who bravely faced a firing squad alongside Emperor Maximillian.—The Editors.

 
*
  
Ten Days in a Mad-House
was also published as a book under Nellie’s name.—The Editors.

 
*
  For once Nellie is being modest. During her madhouse caper, a newspaper reported the “pretty crazy girl … speaks French, Spanish and English perfectly.” (New York
Sun
, October 5, 1887)—The Editors.

 
*
  Poverty, hunger, and the rights of workers were subjects Nellie was particularly sensitive about. Besides many news stories showing the plight of the poor, she dramatized it in fiction. In a poignant scene in her novel,
The Mystery of Central Park
, when her heroine visits the morgue, she sees the body of a streetcar driver who, out of work during a strike, killed himself because his family was starving.—The Editors.

 
*
  Gaston fired the shot outside right after Jules left his own home. The bullet initially missed Jules, but it ricocheted and struck his left leg, seriously wounding him. Jules carried the pain and a limp for the rest of his life. Gaston had been employed by the Foreign Service at the time. Police attributed the shooting to a mental defect. Gaston was institutionalized after the stranger-than-fiction incident.—The Editors.

*
  The Krafft-Ebing report was one of the century’s most influential studies of sexuality. —The Editors.

*
  Coincidentally, this description of the Rat Mort (Dead Rat) Café is almost the same description Émile Zola used in his 1880 risqué novel of Parisian theater life,
Nana
. The café in Zola’s book might have been the Rat Mort, thinly disguised as “Laure’s.” We don’t know how Nellie ended up with a similar passage in her journal notes. It’s probable they both visited the café when Laure was there.—The Editors.

*
  For a man who had written only two plays, and highly criticized poetry, Oscar managed to get an attractive offer during that dinner to write a book. Arthur Conan Doyle sold the publisher his second Sherlock Holmes story,
The Sign of Four
. Wilde sold the publisher the concept of a book that ultimately became
The Picture of Dorian Gray
, which was published in 1890. The publisher asked Oscar for 100,000 word book and got a much shorter one—and the reply that “There are not 100,000 beautiful words in the English language.” The Dorian book essentially launched Oscar’s career as a brilliant writer.—The Editors.

*
  Oscar got his first taste of real literary appreciation with the Dorian book the following year. Toulouse-Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge poster started him on the road to fame the next year, 1891.—The Editors.