Like Edinburgh inspector John Rebus, the resurrection men of the title are treading on thin ice--they've all been sent to a short course at the Scottish Police College because they've failed in some way, generally "an issue with authority." Rebus has been known to have issues of that nature before, which only boosts his credibility with the other cops in attendance, suspected by their bosses of being on the wrong side of the fence, on the take, or even guilty of murder on several previous occasions. The dour Inspector's agenda aims to bring the higher-ups proof of the so-called Wild Bunch's nefarious activities; in the process, his own conduct in the old case he and his college classmates must rework and revisit comes under scrutiny. A solid police procedural whose protagonist, the hero of 14 other titles in this internationally acclaimed series, continues to grow on readers who are just discovering him.

London, 1830s, twelve-year-old Victor, an orphan, knows from experience that life is dangerous, and death by disease or accident is com-mon. But to Mr. Tipple and Mr.Biggs, these streets-teeming with the poor and forgotten-are a paradise.They know that a child, once dead,is a commodity, and they are growing impatient.

In this tumultuous dark under-world, where a "fresh subject" can fetch as much as nine guineas-the yearly salary of a workingman-Victor must risk his life to uncover the iden-tity of the ghoulish murderer who is at the very heart of London's furtive trade in human corpses.

T. K. Welsh, author of The Unre-solved, spins an intricate web of greed,malevolence, and redemption in this chilling murder mystery based on the body-snatcher trials of the 1830s.