Resurrectionist

Matthew Hawkwood has been sent by Chief Magistrate James Read to a cemetery where a man has been found hanging.  Hawkwood discovers that his tongue and teeth have been removed.  He also discovers that the body of a woman has been removed from her nearby grave.  He is sure that the hung man is there as a warning from one group of resurrectionists to another.

When Hawkwood reports to Read, Read asks him to also investigate a murder which had occurred the night before at Bethlem Hospital, which is better known as Bedlam.  The killer is known to be a vicar!  However, when he gets to the cell of the victim he finds that the victim is actually the parson, and the killer, who had been an army surgeon has escaped custody.  What would he do next?

It is at this point, that a constable arrives to inform Hawkwood that they had the vicar cornered in a church.  Hawkwood rushes to the church only to find it on fire and the surgeon consumed by it.

Not long after this two constables discover a couple of bags near a hospital with the remains of two women who had been disinterred and then surgically divested of some of their organs and skin.  Hawkwood wonders how a dead surgeon could have done this.  He returns to the church to try and figure out how the surgeon had survived the conflagration.  He also sets out to learn as much as he can about the surgeon, but will it be enough to help him find him?

As Hawkwood gains more information about the surgeon, he comes to a terrifying realisation. 

What comes afterwards is well written, expanding tension by author James McGee. This thriller is well worth the read for fans of historical fiction.