A remarkable first novel. At once a close character study and a sweeping panorama of 'dissectionists' who buy bodies for medical research and the 'resurrectionists' who dig them up, this fascinating book is a stirring work of fiction and a perceptive chapter in Ireland's social history.--Marilyn Stasio

An engrossing historical mystery. Gallows humor and Dickensian details permeate Hughes' debut, one that takes readers to the dark heart of a series of real crimes in Victorian Dublin.

Andrew Hughes has created an eerily authentic world where one's neighbors cannot be trusted and the authorities even less. John's rapid decline from aimless student to cold-blooded killer is not only chilling, but sophisticated in its telling. Superb.

Just about everything pays off in this engrossing 'Crime and Punishment' style tale. Fascinating. The novel is mean and wicked and really well done.

A quite exceptional novel. The world he creates has echoes of Kafka and Orwell. Totally convincing. It draws you in like a trap.--C. J. Sansom, author of Dissolution and Winter in Madrid

A Kafkaesque study of an amoral weakling consumed by an unrestrained bureaucracy.

Compelling and eerily authentic. Read it and be grateful to be alive in our day and age.--Robert Goddard

Extraordinarily detailed world, impeccably researched. So superbly written that it soars as a masterly work of fiction. Utterly compelling.

Fascinating. A mesmerizing, utterly convincing, utterly sympathetic tale of life in Victorian Dublin. A realistic, complex tale that raises important, topical questions about society, government and morality. And the writing itself is really quite terrific. An exceptional historical mystery.

Historian Hughes puts his knowledge of mid-19th-century Ireland to masterly use in his chilling first novel. This beautifully written tale of cruelty and redemption is as unforgettable as it is harrowing.

Born in Ireland, Andrew Hughes was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. It was while researching his acclaimed social history of Fitzwilliam Square - Lives Less Ordinary: Dublin's Fitzwilliam Square, 1798-1922 - that he first came across the true story of John Delahunt that inspired his debut novel. Andrew lives in Dublin.