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Overview
Edinburgh, 1822. Young Robbie is just eight years old when he witnesses his mother’s agonizing pain and then death from the removal of a breast tumor during public surgery at the hands of one savage surgeon, Dr. Knox. The sounds of his mother’s piercing cries haunt Robbie as he and his hapless father and baby sister try to go on.
But life proves bitter when Robbie’s father loses his business and disappears. Years of poverty go by as Robbie cares for his sister in the Edinburgh slums. Fueled by anger and grief, the teenaged Robbie seems to be heading for a life on the wrong side of the law when he helps the men providing “the butcher Knox” with dead bodies for his medical research.
For years, Robbie thinks of Knox as his mother’s killer and wants revenge. He’s convinced that Knox is involved in a murderous trade in bodies for experimentation and plans a confrontation. It will take time to see the motives behind Knox’s corrupt methods. Perhaps there will be a way to give some meaning to his mother’s tragic death after all.
In nineteenth-century Scotland, following the death of his mother during surgery, Robbie decides to take revenge on the surgeon who performed the operation, Dr. Robert Knox, and in the process, makes a gruesome discovery about the lengths the medical profession will go to advance its knowledge of anatomy.
Synopsis
Edinburgh, 1822. Young Robbie is just eight years old when he witnesses his mother’s agonizing pain and then death from the removal of a breast tumor during public surgery at the hands of one savage surgeon, Dr. Knox. The sounds of his mother’s piercing cries haunt Robbie as he and his hapless father and baby sister try to go on.
But life proves bitter when Robbie’s father loses his business and disappears. Years of poverty go by as Robbie cares for his sister in the Edinburgh slums. Fueled by anger and grief, the teenaged Robbie seems to be heading for a life on the wrong side of the law when he helps the men providing “the butcher Knox” with dead bodies for his medical research.
For years, Robbie thinks of Knox as his mother’s killer and wants revenge. He’s convinced that Knox is involved in a murderous trade in bodies for experimentation and plans a confrontation. It will take time to see the motives behind Knox’s corrupt methods. Perhaps there will be a way to give some meaning to his mother’s tragic death after all.
Kimberly L. Paone - VOYA
Robbie lives in nineteenth-century Edinburgh, where the streets are covered with filth and his happy family is torn apart after the famous Dr. Robert Knox operates on his mother's breast tumor. Five days after the surgery she is dead. Six years later, his drunk and destitute father leaves Robbie and his younger sister, Essie, to manage on their own. An all-encompassing hate envelops Robbie as he attempts to seek revenge on the man he considers his mother's killer, the wealthy and successful Dr. Knox. On the path to vengeance, Robbie stumbles across a back-door business that involves his enemy. He joins forces with Dr. Knox's two lowly henchmen in order to get close to his prey, until Robbie realizes that their creepy delivery of hanged criminals for anatomy studies is actually far more sinister than he was led to believe. Basing her story on actual historical characters and events, the author successfully paints the horrible and difficult life of the poor in Edinburgh in the early 1800s. The plight of Robbie and Essie is interesting and is made all the more colorful when mixed with the escapades of the mysterious Dr. Knox. The story unfortunately meanders a bit and is at times quite predictable, but it might not bother teenagers who will be especially attracted to the dark, gruesome realities of early surgical procedures, descriptions of dead bodies, and the like. It has enough literary merit to warrant purchase for both school and public libraries. VOYA CODES: 3Q 4P J (Readable without serious defects; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2004, Delacorte, 224p., Ages 12 to 15.
Editorials
Children's Literature
Robbie's comfortable middle-class life in 1820s Edinburgh unravels after his mother dies, his father's insurance business goes up in flames, and his father declines into an alcoholic mist. In this dark, macabre and engrossing novel, Robbie is responsible for the survival of his small sister and himself. After he loses his job delivering baked goods in a barrow through the narrow, dirty streets of Edinburgh's Old Town, his quest to earn enough money for bare survival leads him to assist Burke and Hare. They were the notorious real-life grave robbers who provided bodies to surgeons in Edinburgh who were striving to learn more about how the human body works. Burke and Hare's true story earned them an infamous place in history. As Robbie helps them deliver bodies, he realizes that they have been "helping" unwary travelers to an early death and he becomes afraid for his own life. Readers will be hoping that despite the odds against him, Robbie will win his struggle to endure. The crowded, filthy, disease-ridden Old Town of the 1820s plays a strong, essential role in this novel. The author sets the scene in grim and vivid detail and she advises, "Don't read this book while you are eating breakfast!" Fleshmarket was a Scottish Arts Council Award winner and was shortlisted for the Children's Book of the Year Award 2004. 2004 (orig. 2003), Delacorte Press/Random House Children's Books, Ages 12 to Adult.—Janet Crane Barley
VOYA
Robbie lives in nineteenth-century Edinburgh, where the streets are covered with filth and his happy family is torn apart after the famous Dr. Robert Knox operates on his mother's breast tumor. Five days after the surgery she is dead. Six years later, his drunk and destitute father leaves Robbie and his younger sister, Essie, to manage on their own. An all-encompassing hate envelops Robbie as he attempts to seek revenge on the man he considers his mother's killer, the wealthy and successful Dr. Knox. On the path to vengeance, Robbie stumbles across a back-door business that involves his enemy. He joins forces with Dr. Knox's two lowly henchmen in order to get close to his prey, until Robbie realizes that their creepy delivery of hanged criminals for anatomy studies is actually far more sinister than he was led to believe. Basing her story on actual historical characters and events, the author successfully paints the horrible and difficult life of the poor in Edinburgh in the early 1800s. The plight of Robbie and Essie is interesting and is made all the more colorful when mixed with the escapades of the mysterious Dr. Knox. The story unfortunately meanders a bit and is at times quite predictable, but it might not bother teenagers who will be especially attracted to the dark, gruesome realities of early surgical procedures, descriptions of dead bodies, and the like. It has enough literary merit to warrant purchase for both school and public libraries. VOYA CODES: 3Q 4P J (Readable without serious defects; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2004, Delacorte, 224p., Ages 12 to 15.—Kimberly L. Paone