For the body snatchers, death is a lucrative business but one grave robber was about to come closer to his trade than he would have wished. His violent murder brings the gruesome living of the city's band of body snatchers to the attention of one Matthew Hawkwood, a man whose past is as dark as his quarry's. A new term at London's anatomy schools has brought demand for fresh corpses, a situation that threatens to spiral into violence. For there is competition among these "resurrection men" in the graveyards of London - a new gang of criminals is in town whose brutality shocks even Hawkwood. Meanwhile, an investigation into a series of dramatic mutilations and murders in Bedlam, home of the criminally insane, leads to ever-stranger clues that suggest a connection between the two inquiries. Delving deep into the world of anatomy and the country's foremost surgeons, Hawkwood hears of bizarre experiments at the literal cutting edge of technology - and beyond. But nothing prepares him for the horrifying truth that lies at the outer reaches of science and nature!