Fleshmarket

Description

It is Edinburgh, 1822, and young Robbie is eight years old when he witnesses his mother's pain and subsequent death from an operation - without anaesthetic - to remove a tumour from her breast at the hands of Dr Knox. Haunted by this terrible event, Robbie, his hapless father and baby sister Essie attempt to move on with their lives. But when Robbie's father loses all their money and disappears, Robbie is left to look after himself and his sister in the Edinburgh slums. Somehow he falls in with Burke and Hare, the two men whom Knox employs to 'collect' bodies for medical research. Robbie sees a way to avenge his mother's death. Convincing himself that Knox is having people killed for him to experiment on, Robbie eventually confronts him. But Robbie comes to realise that for all his hard-heartedness and corrupt methods, Knox's motives are ultimately for the good: to improve surgical conditions, and operate on patients with the greatest speed and therefore minimum risk. Robbie eventually trains to be a surgeon, finally giving meaning to his mother's tragic death.

Nicola lives near Edinburgh with her husband, two daughters, and a dog. After obtaining a degree in Classics and Philosophy, her various past jobs have included, cooking business lunches and plucking turkeys. She worked as an English teacher for 16 years and has promoted child literacy for many years. She has written over 65 non-fiction titles, including some for Hodder Wayland, but achieved a 21 year old ambition when her first and critically acclaimed novel, Mondays Are Red, was published as a Signature title by Hodder in 2001. Nicola's favourite pastimes are reading, glass-painting, creating mosaics and cooking. She hates gardening, but likes nothing better than to sit in a beautifully tended one..

This is a tough thriller, a delicate love story and a powerfully evocative historical novel. At its heart is a young man's obsession with the mother he lost under horrendous, bizarre circumstances. Set in Edinburgh at a time in which the city was at the vanguard of medical advance, Morgan reveals the deep moral dilemmas that accompanied meaningful research at the time. Her descriptions of Edinburgh's Old Town, decaying, corrupt and dangerous, are extraordinarily vivid. Lives were cheap, both within and out of the medical faculty. Morgan is a confident, courageous and honest writer. Fleshmarket is a tour de force, from its attention-grabbing prologue onwards. -- Lindsey Fraser This book grabs you and never lets you go. -- The Glasgow Herald 20031001 Outstanding ... a book that deserves attention -- The Bookseller 20030801 A gripping and intelligent read. -- The Sunday Telegraph 20031201 'A dramatic and thought-provoking book. Nicola Morgan is a fine writer.' -- David Almond 20030217 Novel beginnings are seldom more dramatic or more grim than the first 10 pages of Nicola Morgan's Fleshmarket. This is sweat-on-the-forehead stuff. In the startling introduction to her story, Morgan, an uncompromising writer who doesn't believe in holding back, takes you straight to the painful centre of what is to follow and leaves you gasping. Fleshmarket is well and truly a book that thrills, but behind the rip-roaring plot there is a painful truth that none of us should ever forget. This is an important book that lives up to the expectations of its evocative title and dramatic cover. Stories don't come any more powerful than this. -- Sunday Young Post 20030217