West Port, 1828. In the shadowy closes of Edinburgh’s Old Town, two women aid and abet their husbands in the murders of sixteen people. Scheming, brutish Margaret (‘Lucky’), wife of William Hare, and possessive, loose-tongued Helen ‘Nelly’ McDougal, common-law wife of William Burke, are helping to feed the insatiable need for fresh bodies for surgeon Dr Robert Knox’s notorious anatomy classes.
Only Burke swings for their heinous crimes, while Lucky, Nelly and Hare find themselves on the run from the angry mob, reinvention their only means of survival.
Years later, young journalist Roddy Fletcher hears rumours of numerous ‘sightings’ of Mrs Burke and Mrs Hare. Keen to impress his editor, Roddy suggests an investigation of the aftermath of the disturbing Burke and Hare trial. He elicits the help of Edinburgh cobbler Joseph Campbell, and their quest leads them south, to the grim streets of London, where they discover Lucky is still up to her old tricks. |
