Julia Hamill is gardening one afternoon in rural Massachusetts when her spade strikes something soft and unyielding - not a rock but a human skull.
Medical examiner Maura Isles quickly determines that the skeleton - that of a woman - dates back to the early 1800s.'But too much time has passed,' Maura warns Julia. 'We may never know the whole story of how she died.'
Boston in the 1830s is a place of disease and pestilence - and no one is more aware of this than Norris Marshall, a student at Harvard Medical School who is forced to support himself by performing the most secretive job of all.
Norris is a resurrectionist - a body-snatcher - who procures cadavers from grave robbers in order to further his study of human anatomy. Soon he finds himself hunting the most notorious killer of his time, a shadowy figure who flits through graveyards and glittering ballrooms.
What he does not realize is that the killer is far closer than he thinks ...
