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A young medical illustrator in Georgian era London finds that the women’s cadavers she is drawing for medical students may have been horrifically murdered during various stages of gestation and sets out to solve the mystery before she ends up on the dissection table herself!
In the dead of night, a young woman joins a pack of male students streaming into a Stratford churchyard to unearth the skull of William Shakespeare—and Miriam Dalrymple has the steadiest hands of them all.
Only weeks earlier, Miri had left her father’s small Yorkshire estate for the spectacle of 1761 London, there to live with her sister Anna and Anna’s husband, celebrated physician Dr. William Temple. In Temple’s anatomy school, Miri’s gift for drawing the dead stands her in good stead. Yet it is the enigmatic “Vesalius Club,” a band of radical young anatomists led by a charismatic American medical student, that captivates her. Among these firebrands, Miri decides on a revolutionary goal of her own: to be the first to precisely illustrate the complete stages of human gestation.
As if in answer to her ambition, bodies arrive on Temple’s tables: all young women, poor and pregnant, whose names are in Harris’ notorious “list” of London prostitutes. As the bodies pile up, Miri is convinced that someone in London is murdering in the name of science. And now she must somehow end the mayhem before a serial killing “resurrectionist” comes for one budding medical illustrator in particular.
The Alienist meets The Essex Serpent in this Georgian thriller full of action, mystery, and suspense by award-winning investigative reporter and New York Times best-selling author, Megan Basham.
“It is a rare thing to find a writer like Megan Basham, whose prose is as clear and as strong as her commitment to getting at the truth of things. Whether she is writing non-fiction about the present moment or a rip-roaring page-turner of a novel about the 18th-century ‘resurrection’ trade, Basham’s insight and prose cut to the heart of the matter. She makes good stuff.”—Andrew Klavan, New York Times best-selling author, and two-time winner of the Edgar Award
“Megan Basham has crafted a gripping, atmospheric historical mystery that takes you on a ride through a niche bit of dark English history few have heard of. Even back then, the medical industry was putting young women last. But instead of some feminist screed, Basham has delivered a riveting potboiler filled with questions of morality and compassion in an era that was anything but.”—Peachy Keenan, author of Domestic Extremist and Supervillains
“Megan Basham is an indispensable voice in a chaotic time.”—Ben Shapiro, #1 New York Times best-selling author, and cofounder of The Daily Wire