Corpse Thief
by Michael Arnold
To catch a killer with nothing to fear, send a man with nothing to lose.
London, 1821.
A young girl is found brutally murdered. With the gruesome circumstances of her death pointing to the supernatural, the authorities are desperate to identify the killer before panic and hysteria bring anarchy to the streets. The Bow Street Runners cannot penetrate the wall of silence shielding the thieves and cutthroats infesting the squalid rookeries. In desperation, they must seek help from less traditional quarters.
Joshua Hawke is a grave robber; one of the notorious Resurrection Men. Haunting the shallow graves of crowded and putrefying cemeteries, he makes his living through the supply of fresh corpses to the city’s anatomy schools. Hated and feared by common folk and threatened by rival gangs, his existence is one of hardship and brutality as he battles to survive the dark alleys, smoke-filled gin palaces and notorious slums through which London’s rotten underworld is woven.
Hawke has no choice but to investigate, and it is not long before he begins to suspect that he has stumbled upon something that reaches much further than the isolated murder of a street urchin, and soon it is his own life that is threatened. His quest takes him from the deadly rookeries of St Giles, to the Portsmouth docks, all the way up to the Palace of Westminster, where great and powerful enemies lay in wait. And with each step, the demons from Hawke’s own past are closing in.
Because Joshua Hawke is not all he seems.
dark noir suspense london georgian scary fear spy thriller addiction exciting danger adventure shame serial killer alcohol abuse drug abuse secret war folklore pagan bow street runners sleuth veteran 19th century 18th century death loss grief punish regency hard boiled police horror psychological murder detective body snatcher redemption law
London, 1821.
A young girl is found brutally murdered. With the gruesome circumstances of her death pointing to the supernatural, the authorities are desperate to identify the killer before panic and hysteria bring anarchy to the streets. The Bow Street Runners cannot penetrate the wall of silence shielding the thieves and cutthroats infesting the squalid rookeries. In desperation, they must seek help from less traditional quarters.
Joshua Hawke is a grave robber; one of the notorious Resurrection Men. Haunting the shallow graves of crowded and putrefying cemeteries, he makes his living through the supply of fresh corpses to the city’s anatomy schools. Hated and feared by common folk and threatened by rival gangs, his existence is one of hardship and brutality as he battles to survive the dark alleys, smoke-filled gin palaces and notorious slums through which London’s rotten underworld is woven.
Hawke has no choice but to investigate, and it is not long before he begins to suspect that he has stumbled upon something that reaches much further than the isolated murder of a street urchin, and soon it is his own life that is threatened. His quest takes him from the deadly rookeries of St Giles, to the Portsmouth docks, all the way up to the Palace of Westminster, where great and powerful enemies lay in wait. And with each step, the demons from Hawke’s own past are closing in.
Because Joshua Hawke is not all he seems.
dark noir suspense london georgian scary fear spy thriller addiction exciting danger adventure shame serial killer alcohol abuse drug abuse secret war folklore pagan bow street runners sleuth veteran 19th century 18th century death loss grief punish regency hard boiled police horror psychological murder detective body snatcher redemption law