Applying a scalpel to a city

kw: book reviews, historical fiction, mysteries, plagues, folklore

New author K. Avard is a family friend. His sort-of-fiction-sort-of-nonfiction novel First, Do No Harm was released earlier this month. By his own account, he reads a great deal, possibly more than I did at his age. He spent more than a year in Austria and nearby countries, which clearly provided fodder for this book.

Background facts: 

• Vienna suffered a Great Plague in 1679, which was almost certainly bubonic plague. There is a monument to the event near city center.
• Vampires were considered very real around that time, and some historical events seemed to confirm their reality. This led to the impaling and burning of disinterred corpses that apparently had not "rotted enough".
• Alpen (plural of Alp, not related to the word for "mountain" but to "elf") were folkloric creatures similar to incubi, thought to sit on a sleeping person and suck either their breath or their blood. There is a sexual element to incubus stories that is absent in stories of the Alpen.
• Plague doctors who went to afflicted places and claimed to be able to cure the plague have been accused of spreading it as asymptomatic carriers.

I have not asked Mr. Avard of these things. They are matters of my own knowledge and research I did while reading the book. There may be another thread as well. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, a side narrative concerns an insane man in a mental hospital who worships the vampire at a distance. This man does things such as breed flies, feed them to spiders, and then eat the spiders, under the delusion that consuming so many lives, at first and second hand, will increase his own stock of "life stuff". This narrative was ignored in the various vampire movies and follow-on vampire books and films and TV dramas. But it may underlie a character in the book named Thomas, self-named Belial.

The protagonist Dietrich is a medical doctor who finds himself in the middle of a sudden onslaught of plague. He becomes the central player as he and several companions, including his formidable sister and a very compassionate bishop, must become detectives to determine whether the epidemic is an entirely natural phenomenon, or is there a supernatural element? Are Belial and the plague doctors partly angelic, as they claim, and thus doing God's work? Are they Alpen? If they are angels, are they angels loyal to Jehovah, or are they fallen angels loyal to God's enemy? The denouement provides only a partial answer to all these queries, which testifies to the author's skill and understanding of the ambiguities of real life.

If I go into more details of the plot, it could spoil the enjoyment of other readers. Some may be like me and enjoy comparing the narrative to the facts of history. Others may prefer to read it undistracted by such things. The book offers delights for both.

The absence of a colophon and some other indications show that the book was self-published. The author did speak to me of a distributor, so he apparently did nearly all the work himself but found it best to farm out the advertising and distribution. One result of self-publishing is the lack of a copy editor. I am a compulsive proof-reader, so I found a few items that I'll pass on to Mr. Avard, so he can brush up the text if he decides on a second printing. Most will escape notice by most readers. 

I would advise him and other self-publishers: Locate a friend who can read with care and clear up typos and solecisms, or hire a professional copy editor to give the text a run-through. The rather small number of items I found testify to the author's care, but also show that nobody's perfect. I read and copy-edit everything I write, and I sometimes find things I missed when I read again at a later date.

I hope author K. Avard continues writing, and offers lovers of mystery and historical fiction further delights in the future.