It takes a world of confidence to name your debut novel The Great Stink, and to set it in a sewer. Not even a modern sewer--charmless though that may be--but the crumbling, cholera-laden, rat-infested, fungus-rich sewers of London in the mid-Victorian period, from which pockets of deadly gas frequently burbled to the surface. Clare Clark's unsavory but completely absorbing first novel is a Dantean tour of this reeking underworld and its denizens: both the scavengers--human and animal--and the reformers, who brave the tunnels in the service of public hygiene and social progress after the 1858 Act of Parliament that called for the rebuilding of the sewer system.

The Great Stink juxtaposes two darknesses, both embodied in the filthy tunnels: the lawless desperation of the very poor, and the despair of madness. One of the junior engineers most useful in mapping the existing sewer is William May, a studious, methodical veteran of the Crimean War who manages to conceal from everyone but his wife the horrors he brought out of battle with him. The tunnels don't frighten William; they provide isolation and silence for the bloody rites that keep the Mr. Hyde in him at bay. It seems only a matter of time before William's self-destruction turns outward. Long Arm Tom, his counterpart among the poor, is a "tosher." He enters the tunnels illegally, scraping the sludge for coins or other booty, and trapping hundreds of rats for fighting against dogs at local taverns (all the rage for sporting gentlemen since dog fights have been outlawed). Kindness is a liability in Tom's world, but two acts of pity--one toward a dog, and one, more grudgingly, toward William--provide the resistance that changes the course of this otherwise relentlessly dire story.

The very weak-stomached may need a cup of mint tea or a bowl of potpourri beside them as they wade through the sewer with Tom and William. Clark has spared readers none of the stink, nor the sharp pleasures of suspense. --­Regina Marler

I loved the first few chapters, but quickly grew bored with the repetitive and lengthy descriptions of filth and squalor. I felt the same way about the endless paragraphs describing the protagonist's urge to cut himself. With each page I, too felt an ever increasing urge, not to cut, but to skip these dull and repetitive sections. The main character was far too passive a victim to arouse much sympathy. In the end, I was far more interested in the sewer reconstruction than in any of the characters. Worst of all, the climax involved a series of preposterous coincidences which might have worked for Dickens, but which doesn't for this novel.

Very good first novel about junior engineer on the great London sewer project of the mid-19th century. Now that may sound boring, but the young engineer was brutally injured during the Crimean War, an action that has lasting impact on him and directs the story.

Clark is a historian, and once in a while the historical background of the novel reads more like a research paper instead of being written into the story, but it never derails the well-drawn plot underneath.

For a short recap of the history of the London sewer project, check out the chapter about it in Dreams of Iron and Steel: Seven Wonders of the Nineteenth Century, from the Building of the London Sewers to the Panama Canal.

For a fiction companion from the same time and place, try Mr. Timothy, which picks up the story of Tim Cratchit (yes, that "Tiny Tim" Cratchit) as an adult, in London, in mid-nineteenth century.

I liked this book. It was a tough read, but at the same time it was a page turner. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. Its subject and its characters are utterly original. The atmosphere evoked by the language and the setting reminds me of Dickens.

This is an excellent book. Clare Clark has done the homework. Takes you right into this period of time in London. I never knew until reading this book about the horrendous pollution to the Thames. You are transported back ...almost smelling the stench, experiencing through the gut wrenching prose, the atmosphere and the sewers. I was transfixed! I did not want the book to end. I realize this review does not even touch upon the plot, but I wanted to comment on what affected me about this book, not to say that the plot is not well thought out and executed. By the way, my daughter bought and shared Clark's subsequent novel, The Nature of Monsters, and it is another great, engrossing novel, back in the same period in London (I believe), dealing with the strange beliefs of the time regarding birth defects. I recommend it, as well as the Great Stink, to everyone. You will not be disappointed.

The Bookschlepper recommends The Great Stink by Clark but be forewarned: you can't snack and read this book at the same time! Two men deal with the sewers of mid-19th C. London. One is an engineer with PTSD from the Crimean War. One is Long Arm Tom who raids the sewers of rats for pub entertainment. After a serious drought, the powers-that-be decide a new sewer system is needed and the monumental effort beneath the city is undertaken. In the old sewers, flushed by the tides into the Thames, murder occurs, corruption simmers. Life among the newly-formed middleclass and the huddled masses is shown in stark light and the ever-present smog. Slog through the descriptions; Clark sets up the story vividly. The resolution in quick and a bit serendipitous but this is fiction. Most memorable character: Lady, a pink-eyed ratter, duplicated by the pink-eyed lawyer.