One advantage to reading advanced reading copies is that there's no dustjacket summary to give away the plot. There were suspicions of what the book would eventually turn out to emphasize, but until the first full-blown genre-defining scene a third of the way through the book, I thought it would be a tiger of another stripe.
Brian Ruckley does an impressive job creating both suspenseful literary atmosphere and a historical sense of what Edinburgh was like during the early 1800s. He describes the violence of the times as well as transmits a subtle sense of the underlying menace that is the eventual subject of the book.
It isn't until a third way into the book that what has been hinted at finally is voiced, and not until half-way through the book that we get a real scene. To Ruckley's credit, he doesn't make it campy but keeps his voice relatively restrained and historical, not hysterical or histrionic.
Our hero Quire, an Edinburgh police officer, is interesting because he is bendable but not bent. He tries to stay away from his prostitute girlfriend. He tries to play the game at work. He doesn't manage either very successfully.
What Quire does do is get involved with the "resurrectionists," grave robbers who supply dead bodies to the medical schools and anatomists. Soon he spots anomalies, people who aren't what they should be, people who aren't where they should be.
What Quire does do is get involved with the "resurrectionists," grave robbers who supply dead bodies to the medical schools and anatomists. Soon he spots anomalies, people who aren't what they should be, people who aren't where they should be.
If you've read this review so far but haven't actually read the book, here is a second chance to stop. Following this are some real spoilers. Really, read the book (but not the dustjacket). It's good.
SPOILER ALERT
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So. Zombies. In many ways this book set in 1800s Edinburgh was scarier and more thrilling than a book set in contemporary times with its flamethrowers, ninja sticks, cellphones, nuclear weapons, and stainless steel swords. Shades of Boris Karloff, the zombie gravedigger and zombie dogs were chilling.
Despite several close calls, Quire manages to evade true peril. Even when he confronts the various villains, he has the upper hand and is never captured. One part of me said, "Whew," and another said, why not? Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this "speculative fiction," as Ruckley has branded it. To me, it was less speculative fiction than a supernatural period piece.
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