The Resurrectionist - James Bradley

Coming highly reccommended and nominated by Richard and Judy as one of their best summer reads, The Resurrectionist is a grim and often depressing tale of one man's personal journey as he apprentices to an anatomist, Mr.Poll, and has experiences of both body-snatching and the preparation of the dead for examination. The opening chapter says it all really, starting as it does with Gabriel Swift washing a dead body ready for display before students the next day, and the story never gets much brighter from there. Anyone expecting anything different should really give up at this point as this is a bleak look at 1830's London and features all manner of macabre and disturbing ...  Read the complete review

This is a dark, chilling story set mainly in Georgian London. It is narrated by a young man named Gabriel who finds himself working as a resurrectionist - hence the title. His job is to find bodies and sell them on to anatomists who can then use them for training their students. However, things get complicated by some fierce competition between his own master and a man named Lucan, who also collects the city's bodies to sell for profit. As a result, he unwillingly enters a corrupt and dangerous underworld which threatens never to let him out of its grasp. James Bradley has succeeded in creating a tale which convincingly portrays the London of its time. His use ...  Read the complete review

The first part of the novel is fabulous. It's deeply dark and gothic; there's something gruesome but intriguing unrolling before your very eyes. From the cover you already know this is 1800s England. The reader is led to London with Gabriel Swift as our narrator. Gabriel wants to make his own way in the world following previous support from his Guardian and he ends up involved in a world of resurrectionists and stolen bodies; moving from one trade to another. He meets lively and violent characters along the way in his pursuit of something the reader isn't party to. According to the dust jacket it is a hell of his own making within the London underworld. Hell or not, it's ...  Read the complete review