Nicola Morgan

Fieldnotes:
Edinburgh, 1828

1 Gruesome, Unfortunate Surgery
1 Tragedy Ending in Bankruptcy
1 Alcoholic Absentee Father
1 Winsome Little Sister
Sordid, Squalid Poverty

1 Burning Hatred for
1 Self-Important Surgeon
1 Secret Illegal Anatomy School
Inadequate Amounts of Not Quite Resurrection Men Burke & Hare
1 Self-Destructive Spiral

The Short Version:
I picked this up because of its Edinburgh setting and because it was (ostensibly) about Burke & Hare - a rather gruesome set of criminals from the 1820s. But while this was admirably vivid as a look at the squalor and misery of poverty at the time in Edinburgh, the actual plot just...didn't really work for me.

Robbie's mother died after (unanesthetized) surgery done by Dr. Knox when Robbie was only 8. Robbie blames Knox and when Robbie encounters him by chance 6 years later, he becomes consumed by his hatred and drive for revenge to the point of losing his job and neglecting his sister, sending them deeper into squalor - but he discovers that Knox is buying cadavers for an illicit anatomy school from Burke & Hare.

Fine...but somehow Robbie gets entangled working for Burke & Hare (why???) as a lookout and his path just keeps on crossing Dr. Knox who increasingly is shown to be just a person - self-important, but a skilled surgeon who plays the violin as Robbie loves to. Without really caring a jot for Robbie he ends up saving him from prison once and his life another time.

This kind of nuance should be interesting, but ultimately it just seems like the story has no heart. It seems like the sort of thing that would be assigned at school because there are a lot of tie-in subjects that could be discussed (history of medicine, ethics, body-snatching, maybe even some sociology), but in terms of plot - none of it really seems to drive the story forward and I found myself putting the book down more often than not with little drive to pick it back up.… (more)