Jack's Typewriter

The year is 1896 and England is wiping the soot of the last hundred years from its eyes. Slowly, the shadows are being chased away by new, gas-powered streetlamps; human voices are crossing the boundaries of  time  and space   via underwater cables, and revolutionary new treatments for psychological illnesses are coming over from the continent. This is where author Laura Dietz begins her tale. Her protagonist is Dr Ambrose Genett, a psychiatrist. He is the picture of a Victorian gentleman: stiff, starched and repressed. Unlike his contemporaries, Ambrose knows that his profession is on the cusp of a renaissance – the old ways are on their way out, and any argument to the contrary is an affront to progress. He takes a similar view when it comes to the spiritualist hocus pocus that's been gaining popularity. We meet him as he is indulging in a spot of people-watching at Victoria Station. He's mainly interested in the women, but not in  that  way. "Titillation" is not &q