In a boarding house in the WestPort area of 1820’s Edinburgh, an old army pensioner dies of natural causes. He owes the landlord £4 rent. Instead of burying the body, the landlord and his friend—one William Hare and William Burke, both Irish—fill the coffin with bark and sell the corpse to Dr. Robert Knox, an ambitious Edinburgh anatomist. Burke and Hare make a profit of £3 and 10 shillings. After this encouraging start, Burke and Hare decide to suffocate another sickly tenant, so beginning the criminal career of the most notorious double act in serial killing that would only end on the gallows with the worst kind of betrayal. It’s a true tale of desperation and greed, of outsiders, ambition, corruption, love, and betrayal.

Owen Dudley Edwards is a reader in history at EdinburghUniversity and a regular contributor and reviewer for radio, television, and the press. His books include Mind of an Activist: James Connolly; P. G. Wodehouse: A Critical and Historical Study; and The Quest for Sherlock Holmes: A Biographical Study of Arthur Conan Doyle.