EQMM regular and Readers-Award winner David Dean shares some of the background and thought behind the stories in his Dr. Marchland stories, with the most recent being “Marchland’s Missing Patient” from our March/April issue

When EQMM contacted me about writing a blog, the request contained a list of prompts to aid the writer in selecting a subject, such as ‘How did you come to write this story?” In the past, I’ve not paid much attention to these but struck out on my own. This time, however, since the March/April issue contains a story of mine—“Marchland’s Missing Patient”—I thought I would take the opportunity to introduce you to the story’s characters and the world they live in.

As to how I came to author the Marchland stories—they form a series—is simply told. During the Covid lock-down I took the opportunity to read, or re-read, classic novels and short stories from the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Being a crime fiction writer I now viewed them through a different lens and saw crimes woven throughout many of them, the opportunity for re-interpretation abundant and beckoning. All that was needed was a Victorian alienist to take them on. Enter Dr. Marchland.

Both the stories and their creators are introduced at the beginning of each case with a quote from the work and attribution to the writer. Hence, “Mrs. Hyde,” March/April 2023, is inspired, not surprisingly, by Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” “Crown v Marchland” July/Aug 2023, takes flight from De Maupassant’s “The Diary of a Madman,” and “The Carfax Lunatic Society” Jan/Feb 2024, from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, the current story (very loosely) from Wilke Collins’ “The Woman in White”. . . . Each of these revisited by our very own Dr. Marchland who takes us along for a romp through murder, mystery, and twisted psychology, Victorian-style.

“Patient” is the seventh installment in the ongoing saga of Dr. Beckett Marchland of London. In this bygone age of developing interest and study of the human psyche, Marchland maintains a lucrative private practice while moonlighting as an expert witness. This last entails examining prisoners for psychological fitness for trial by Her Majesty’s Criminal Court or, conversely, hiring out to solicitors and barristers who wish to introduce mitigating factors for their clients’ defense. Often, he simply stumbles into cases as when he’s invited to a country house in Lincolnshire in “Aswarby Hall” March/April 2025.

A liberty I take with these stories is the coming and going of both historical personages of the era and fictional ones from the same. Marchland encounters both Oscar Wilde and Count Dracula, M. R. James, and Dr. Jekyll—Victorian fiction blending with Victorian reality.

In her comments regarding “Shall I Be Mother,” July/August 2024, editor Jackie Sherbow described Marchland as a person of whimsical sensibilities, and she was right. Of course, Marchland takes himself quite seriously. He is a man of his time and place and blinkered by many biases. As a result, he is often wrong in whole, or in part, in his endeavors, which are altruistic in the main. Neither does he have trouble in seeing himself as a victim, and sometimes really is one as in “Crown v Marchland.”   

In such situations, he must rely on a number of people. As the reader arrives at, or begins, the current story, Marchland’s very large and somber butler, Owens, has been a constant presence. His “Welsh Ogre” as Marchland has referred to him, is a retired army color sergeant. The late Colonel Marchland described him as, “The most dangerous man in my regiment.” Owens is a fixture and condition of Beckett’s inheritance.

However, Marchland does not view the perpetually disapproving Owens as an asset (at least not publicly) but rather a watchdog set upon him by a stern and distant father who had little understanding of his intellectual and frivolous son.

Owens confirms this suspicion in “The Carfax Lunatic Society,” when he says, “Your father, the colonel—good man that he was—said that I was to stay close to you, sir, whenever you might be in danger or…embarked on some foolishness as might be in your nature.”

Marchland’s response? “Did he, Owens? Well, really! What an irritating person he could be.”

However reluctant Marchland may be to admit to any virtues that Owens might possess, he is rarely without him—which has proved most fortunate for him on a number of occasions.

Also in residence is Mrs. Owens—Mrs. O to Marchland—who heads up the cooking staff in his household. It is she who provides an island of comfort and normalcy in her warm and busy kitchen. Marchland is often to be found at her cluttered table being fed scones and jam, or other sweets, as if he were a lost waif wandered in from the street.

Yet far from being isolated from the outside world, Mrs. O is a fount of information, having members of her large family in service in households all over the city. Marchland gratefully mines these resources as is demonstrated in the current story.   

In the first of the series, “Mrs. Hyde,” Marchland rescues a boy from the dangerous streets of London. Jamie, having barely escaped being murdered by his own father, still bears the scar round his neck as proof. He lives by theft and sleeps in sheds and cellars that he breaks into at night and slips out of at first light. The Owens’s take him in hand. His hard-earned street skills prove useful to Marchland’s investigations.

There are yet two more added to the cast in the fifth installment, one in the person of Lydia Houghton, late of Dublin and Kilkenny. This lovely young woman first appears in “Aswarby Hall” and again in “The Portrait of Adrian Whyte,” May/June 2025. She is in England to help establish her family’s whiskey business abroad. Marchland, who enjoys strong spirits perhaps too much, wholly approves her venture. In fact, he finds little to disapprove of in Lydia Houghton with, perhaps, the exception of her ‘Irish humor’. Being vain (a la Oscar Wilde, he wears his auburn hair shoulder-length), he dislikes ever being the butt of a joke. This attitude does not deter Lydia from chiding him. He also discovers that she handles a pistol expertly and is a fearsomely competent archer. She figures prominently in “Marchland’s Missing Patient”.

Also fearsome is Maeve, Lydia’s lifelong companion, and maid, who finds nothing to like in the Englishman, and does little to mask her feelings about him. Marchland finds her intimidating and unpleasant, perhaps the only person in his circle that makes Owens tolerable by comparison. So there you have the premise and characters of the Marchland series up to the moment of this current issue. I do hope you that consider giving the story a read, and if you do, that you enjoy it and will wish to read the others. Many thanks, also, to those already following the adventures of Dr. Marchland, and rest assured, this is not the final story.