Robin Blake je autorem ceněných děl o umělcích Van Dyckovi a Stubbsym. Rozsáhle psal, produkoval a uváděl pro rozhlas, je široce publikován jako kritik a působí jako Royal Literary Fund Fellow na Brunel University. Žije v Londýně.
County Coroner Titus Cragg has been called to the scene of a gruesome slaughter at a rural farmhouse. Meanwhile, his friend Dr Luke Fidelis is a guest at nearby Orford Hall, where a blackened body is discovered deep beneath the hot-house. Cragg and Fidelis are asked to investigate, and uncover a shocking connection between the two cases.
Can the mind and body affect each other? Can something non-material and subjective work physical change? Does the personality play an active, voluntary role against the body?Ever since medicine became a science, the role of the mind in physical health has been passionately disputed. Thoday. conventional treatments rely almost entirely on drugs, yet there is growing evidence to support what healers have always believed, that our bodies "know" how to become ill and well, and that we can choose one disease over another.In this fascinating book, Robin Blake examines the phrase " it's all in the mind" and reveals the full complexity of the mind's effect on the body, whether for good or ill. He challenges the mechanistic approach of modern medicine and hows that our emotions are deeply involved in the homeostatic processes that sustain life. Along the way, he explores the variablility of pain thresholds, the intelligence of the immune system, the selectiveness of infection, the cellular civil wars of cancer and auto-allergy, and may other phenomena which have baffled science.The body, he suggests, is far more than a biological machine, and doctors and patients alike would benefit from adopting a wider, more holistic view of health. (On reverse of book)
Set in the summer of 1748, the story follows County Coroner Titus Cragg as he investigates the suspicious death of John Lavenham, a London commissioner, in the tumultuous hamlet of Ingolside. Amidst rising tensions from the King's Enclosure plans and a chaotic local population, Titus faces the challenge of conducting an inquest with limited resources and support. Relying on his loyal friend Dr. Luke Fidelis and his own expertise, he navigates a web of gossip and potential violence to uncover the truth behind the murder.
The discovery of a body in a pigsty, shot to death, leads Coroner Titus Cragg and Dr Luke Fidelis into a complex and baffling murder investigation.April, 1746 . When County Coroner Titus Cragg is called to examine a body found shot to death at a local farm, he finds himself drawn into a bizarre and complex case where nothing is as it first appears. As he questions those who knew the victim, it becomes clear that not everyone is telling him the whole truth.Could the motive for the murder lie in a dangerous contract the dead man had signed more than twenty years before, a so-called tontine agreement? Just what does the victim's enigmatic lawyer, Ambrose Parr, know that he's not revealing? As he and Dr Luke Fidelis attempt to track down the six other signatories to the contract, Titus realizes that if they do not find answers - and fast - more violent deaths will surely follow.
Far more than a fine horse portraitist, George Stubbs was a painter and a printmaker of the highest importance, on a par with his contemporaries, Hogarth, Reynolds and Gainsborough. This book uncovers his origins and some of the secrets of his youth: sympathy with the Jacobite rebels and Catholicism; and an undocumented wife and family in York.
The fourth book in the Cragg & Fidelis historical crime series, from a master of the genre.
In 1740, Coroner Titus Cragg investigates the murder of Dolores Brockletower in Lancashire, where lawlessness prevails. He teams up with Dr. Luke Fidelis to navigate local superstitions, official obstruction, and the Squire's denouncements as they seek to uncover the truth behind the brutal crime.
In 1740s England the roots of evil run deep...
The third book in the Cragg & Fidelis historical crime series, from a master of the genre.
An accidental death. A conspiracy afoot. A forensic conundrum...