Undiscovered Scotland

 

"Mrs Burke & Mrs Hare" by Michelle Sloan is a beautifully crafted novel that visits a subject known to many – the story of the bodysnatchers – but brings a new dimension to its telling.

The story is told in two halves. The first is set in the shadowy closes of the Old Town of Edinburgh at the time when Burke and Hare are conducting their reign of terror, murdering to order to feed the insatiable need for cadavers by Dr Robert Knox, anatomist at the University of Edinburgh. Burke and Hare become drawn into a money-making scheme hatched by one Margaret (Lucky) Laird, who in time becomes the wife of Hare and bears his child. Burke is more difficult to convince than Hare, but is eventually won over, despite the protestations of his wife Nelly. Sixteen people are murdered, seventeen bodies delivered, before the four are arrested, though only Burke is hanged for their crimes.

In the second half of the story, Duncan Fletcher, a keen young journalist, hears rumours of sightings of the two women and decides to investigate. More than twenty years have passed since Burke’s hanging and he sees potential in revisiting the story to make a name for himself. Following up the flimsiest of leads, he travels first north and then to London to see if there is any truth in the rumours. He takes with him Joseph Campbell, a cobbler from the Old Town who is old enough to have lived in the time of Burke and Hare. Joseph is eager to join him, but it is only as they get close to finding one of the woman that Duncan begins to see that Joseph may have his own motive for tagging along.

The characterisation and the settings are the true highlights of this compelling story. Such is the realism created by the author that the reader is drawn into the dark reality of the time and the crimes. It is almost possible to sense the danger and smell the unpleasant scent of squalor in the streets and houses of the poorest of Edinburgh. In observing the selection and murder of the unfortunates, those who it is believed no one will miss, a twisted logic emerges that seeks to legitimise the actions of Burke and Hare, their wives and the establishment. When Duncan Fletcher arrives on the scene some twenty years later it seems little has changed, and he uncovers horrors of equal magnitude as he pursues the ones who got away.