Ingenious Pain
"What does the world need most--a good, ordinary man, or one who is  outstanding, albeit with a heart of ice?" This is the question at the heart of Andrew  Miller's first novel,Ingenious Pain, a book set during the 18th-century Age of  Enlightenment. The outstanding man in question is James Dyer, an English freak of  nature who, since birth, has been impervious to physical pain. Not only does he feel no  pain, but he recovers from all injuries in record time. By turns a shill for a quack pain- reliever at county fairs, an object of study by a wealthy collector of human oddities, and,  eventually, a surgeon, James Dyer--and through him the reader--gains exposure to a  panoply of 18th-century philosophical thought, medical practice, historic events, and  larger-than-life rogues and heroes, both fictional and real.As a surgeon, James Dyer excels, and his inability to feel--whether physical pain himself  or empathy for others--seems only to enhance his skill with a knife. James slices and  dices and cures without a scintilla of compassion while his reputation grows, until at last  he arrives in Russia and the mystery of his unusual quality is resolved. Miller navigates  his complicated story and exotic locales with unswerving confidence, bolstered, no doubt,  by thorough research. James Dyer is not a character who invites love, but his adventures  make for intelligent, deeply pleasurable reading.