The Specimens
eBook - ePub

The Specimens

A bold retelling of Burke and Hare’s crimes from the women closest to the gruesome truth

  1. 288 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Specimens

A bold retelling of Burke and Hare’s crimes from the women closest to the gruesome truth

About this book

"A work of fiction that is both a potent portrait of early 19th-century Edinburgh but also a story about female agency or the lack of it. The result is a compelling, painful, haunted piece of work." THE HERALD

WATERSTONES SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE MONTH AUGUST 2025

Up the close and down the stair, meet the women of Burke and Hare

Edinburgh, 1828. Two women - one rich, one poor - must navigate life against a frenzied backdrop of medical discovery, mob mayhem, and murder.

Susan's sheltered life as the wife of Robert Knox, a wealthy anatomist, is a far cry from Helen's perilous existence in the Old Town slums with her lover William Burke.

Yet as people begin disappearing, these two different women face the same impossible choice. Should they protect what they have or tell the truth about what they know?

Discover the notorious serial killings of Burke and Hare, told for the first time through the eyes of women whose
stories reveal the depths of the human heart.

COMING OCTOBER 2025 - Poor Creatures - Unearth the fascinating story of Mary Shelley: the mind which birthed Frankenstein's monster...


PRAISE FOR THE SPECIMENS

"Beguiling and atmospheric" HEAT MAGAZINE

"A fresh, feminine take on the horrors of Scotland's most notorious serial killers" SALLY MAGNUSSON

"Gruesomely gripping, this story will stay with you for a long time" SUE LAWRENCE

"Mairi Kidd holds a lantern up to the brutality of women's lives in Burke, Hare and Knox's Edinburgh" LUCY RIBCHESTER

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Yes, you can access The Specimens by Mairi Kidd in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Crime & Mystery Literature. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Maps
  4. Half Title
  5. Title Page
  6. Copyright
  7. Dedication
  8. Epigraph
  9. Contents
  10. Prologue
  11. The Specimens
  12. Epilogue
  13. Author’s Note
  14. Acknowledgments
  15. About the Author