‘Superb’ Sunday Express

A gripping and darkly atmospheric thriller set in Victorian London, perfect for fans of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, The Strangers Diaries and The Silent Companions.

What secret grips Corvus Hall?

Visiting the Great Exhibition to view the wax anatomical models of the famous but reclusive Dr Silas Strangeway, Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain find a severed hand, perfectly dissected and laid out amongst the exhibits. Assuming it to be a prank by medical students they return it to Dr Strangeway, who works at Corvus Hall, a private anatomy school run by Dr Alexander Crowe - once one of Edinburgh’s most revered anatomists. Jem’s persistence reveals that a body does indeed lie in the school’s mortuary, minus its right hand. The body has no provenance. More macabre still, its face has been dissected making identification impossible.

All is not as it should be at Corvus Hall. Dr Crowe’s daughter, Lilith, visits the mortuary in the dead of night. Her twin sisters, Sorrow and Silence - one blind and one deaf - exert a malign influence over the students. Organs, freshly dissected, appear in the anatomical museum. Fear grips lecturers and students, even as something unseen binds them in a bloody pact of silence.

Praise for E. S. Thomson’s novels:

‘Gothic. Gory. Glorious … E. S. Thompson’s Jem Flockhart books are the best I’ve read in years. Jem is just my kind of heroine: scarred, smart, complex, and unapologetically queer’ Kirsty Logan, author of The Gloaming

‘Love evocative descriptions of Victorian London and brilliant plotting? Then grab a copy of this!’ Rebecca Griffiths, author of The Primrose Path

‘Here’s a tale of Victorian London to freeze your blood on a cold winter’s night’ Evening Telegraph

‘Jem Flockhart’s London is vivid, pungent and perilous’ Chris Brookmyre

‘Complex, harrowing and highly enjoyable’ Daily Express

‘A marvellous, vivid book’ Janet Ellis

‘Jem Flockhart is a marvel … This vivid journey into the dark side of the human soul is a thoroughly engrossing tale’ Mary Paulson Ellis, author of The Other Mrs Walker