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Written by A Man Like Any Other
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Unnatural Fire Written by Fidelis Morgan
 Originally published in 2002 by Harper Perennial 368 pages
The original title of this work was Unnatural Fire (Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink). That’s right; this is a story about alchemy. And sex. Oh, and there’s a murder mystery in there somewhere as well.
Described as a "bawdy romp" by both editorial reviews at Amazon.com, Unnautral Fire follows a murder investigation by an impoverished aristocrat and her former maid. Along the way, the pair stumbles through an eighteenth-century London where every last citizen is a transvestite, a fetishist or a pimp. Every man of letters is a closet alchemist, every corpse is naked and glows in the dark, and Sir Isaac Newton is a kiddie-fiddling bed-wetter.
The story begins with about twenty pages of the maid’s "jubblies" bursting out of her bodice. Once the author has this out of her system, the investigation begins in earnest. The duo’s enquiries centre on a mysterious code. Are the symbols intended in their astrological or alchemical senses? Or do they represent something else entirely? I won’t ruin the answer for you; it can do that all by itself. It does involve blindfolds and handcuffs, but those are rather old hat by the end of this twisted tale.
Although the ending was a little disappointing, Morgan’s writing style is engaging and the little historical footnotes are interesting enough that I forgave the clunky way they were woven into the plot. Even so, the book would have needed more alchemy and less smut to raise it above *** out of *****.
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