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

“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 HERALDWATERSTONES SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE MONTH AUGUST 2025Up the close and down the stair, meet the women of Burke and HareEdinburgh, 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