Synopsis: Set in the 1820s in Edinburgh, a city of cruel contrasts between the lives of the rich and poor, and home to the infamous Burke and Hare, who sold their murder victims to brilliant anatomist Dr Robert Knox. This is the evocative, often harrowing story of a boy who must survive the pain of his mother's death, at the hands of Doctor Knox.
Review: The intense sadness that grips the reader at the start of this novel is shocking and ever-present through out the remainder of this gripping narrative. In her foreword, Nicola Morgan tells us of the birth of her inspiration when she heard ‘the true and truly chilling story which forms the basis of the opening chapter’ .Truly chilling is an understatement. This wonderful, original, horrifically descriptive and empathetic start ensures the reader’s imagination is ready to follow this multilayered story right through to its end, to do anything less would be a sacrilege.
Morgan explores the differences within the class system in Edinburgh, detailing Robbie’s family’s fall from grace following the death of his mother. Not only are the family left without its matriarch, but their distressing ill fortune is soon hounded by a fire, poverty, a decent into alcoholism then absence of their father, ending in Robbie’s imprisonment. Robbie decides he must change his and Essie’s (his 8 year old sister) fortune. It is Robbie’s sense of powerlessness that the reader is able to identify with. He channels all his frustration and energy into hatred, focused entirely upon the man he blames for his mother’s death, her surgeon, Dr. Knox.
“If he hated Knox before, now, now that he had faced him and felt his sneer, his hatred was a hundred times as strong.”
The reader eagerly follows Robbie’s pursuit of justice, retribution and revenge which does not take the course Robbie had imagined. This fascinating tale ends in a hanging, multiple murders, the ruination of a reputation and a change in fortune for a brother and sister who have to endure much to achieve their dream, to escape from Fleshmarket Street.
Buy this Book 2006-12-02
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