The Specimens: A bold retelling of Burke and Hare's crimes from the women closest to the gruesome truth

"A work of fiction that is both a potent portrait of early 19th-century Edinburgh but also a story about female agency or the lack of it. The result is a compelling, painful, haunted piece of work."—The Herald

Edinburgh, 1828. Two women - one rich, one poor - must navigate life against a frenzied backdrop of medical discovery, mob mayhem, and murder.

The home Helen shares in the slums of the Old Town with her lover William Burke could hardly be more different from Susan's dreams of an afflue...