This book follows an expedition to Peru to steal quinine from the native industry, which has formed a monopoly to protect Peruvian industry, essentially. It's beautiful. Merrick is taken along against his better judgment, and despite his bad leg, which forces him to walk with a cane, by his friends Clem and Minna. But really, it's the East India Company needing him to either get live tree clippings out or let them start a war.

Merrick is a fantastic character. Just...amazing. We start with him in England, puttering around his brother's falling apart estate and working in the greenhouse, being sure his life is over and he is going crazy. Clem and Minna talk him into leaving for Peru, assure him his leg won't be an issue - and he already knows they're lying.

As soon as they leave England, Merrick becomes more healthy and Clem and Minna become worse. She's pregnant, and soon realizes she has to leave the plot forever (which is honestly a shame there are not enough women in this book), while Clem gets first seasick, and then altitude sick. Merrick does struggle, but he is more prepared than Clem to adapt. For an anthropologist, Clem is really...rude. He's an old-school anthropologist who wants to look at foreign cultures like a zoo and translate their practices into western european practices. Merrick is more interested in understanding Peru on its own terms.

And then Raphael shows up. And he is in turns lovely and murderous. Here's my giveaway. I love the relationship between these two, except for the end, which I don't really get entirely. It seems tragic to me that Merrick would wait so long for a man turned almost to stone. It's also kind of uncomfortable that he's dating his granddad's ex, but on the other hand, it might also be a sort of ace/aro relationship which would make me a lot more comfortable?

Anyway, this is a beautiful book. I think it's even better than the Watchmaker of FIligree Street. I think Merrick is drawn so well as a layered character who ultimately intends well but who also feels nothing but mild indifference about being a part of the East India Company, thereby the drug trade, and by his own admission, one of the white men ruining the world. And this is a book about living with disability in many ways, which is also pretty interesting.