Publisher's Synopsis
The Cloak of Hippocrates is the compelling saga of Alex Morpheus, a boy growing up in nineteenth-century New England. In his infancy, Alex is abandoned by his father after his mother dies in childbirth, and though the wealthy senior Morpheus supports him financially throughout his youth he is never a parent to the child. In fact, while alex is in his early school years, his father moves to England, remarries, and has another family. Alex, undaunted and even strengthened by his difficult childhood, develops into a distinguished scholar and surgeon, also marrying the daughter of an influential U.S. Senator and having two children. His father, in the meantime, is apparently associated with several heinous murders in London, a situation that inevitably draws Alex there and to a reunion with the man who abandoned him decades earlier. Written in the style of Jean-Christophe and David Copperfield, this is a story rich with surprising twists and turns, including encounters wtih actual figures of that era, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.; Emily Dickinson; Dr. William Halsted; and even Jack the Ripper, giving the story a strong and intriguing historical sense.
