The Dead Will Rise (A Simon Westow mystery)

by Chris Nickson

Thief-taker Simon Westow is used to finding stolen goods, not stolen bodies . . . Can he hunt down those committing crimes against the dead in Leeds?

Leeds. April, 1824. Wealthy engineer Joseph Clark employs thief-taker Simon Westow to find the men who stole the buried corpse of Catherine Jordan, his employee's daughter.

Simon is stunned and horrified to realize there's a gang of body snatchers in Leeds. He needs to discover who bought Catherine's body and where it is now. As he hunts for answers, he learns that a number of corpses have vanished from graveyards in the town. Can Simon and his assistant Jane bring the brutal, violent Resurrection men who are selling the dead to medical schools to justice and give some peace to the bereft families?

• ISBN10: 1448310199
• ISBN13: 9781448310197
• Publish Date: 7 March 2023
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
• Imprint: Severn House
• Edition: Main
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 240
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

The Dead Will Rise is the fifth Simon Westow historical mystery by Chris Nickson. Released 7th March 2023 by Severn House, it's 291 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. 

This is such a skillfully written series. Protagonist thief-takers (bounty hunters/ private investigators) Simon and his partner Jane are employed by a wealthy businessman and tasked with finding the resurrectionists who have stolen the body of his employee's daughter. They're outclassed in terms of power and deceitfulness by influential men in Leeds and are in danger of losing their freedom and lives throughout the book. There's a real and palpable sense of the setting and narrative menace throughout much of the book and the writing is very high quality and engaging. It is redolent of the time period (1820's) and setting (Leeds and environs) without sacrificing readability.

It's written around a framework of actual events so skillfully that it's difficult to tell when fact shades over into fiction. The author is technically competent and (happily) quite prolific. There are now 4 books extant in the series, making this a good candidate for a long weekend binge or buddy read. 

The books -are- quite realistic and this one is no exception. The author has a very realistic writing style and describes the less salubrious facts of life in the early 19th century unflinchingly. This book deals with the stark, brutal, and all-too-often short lives of the inhabitants, even relatively financially well-to-do. 

One of the main characters, Jane, has a very sad back-story, and much of the plot of the book revolves around her past, her present, and her (scarily competent) redemptive development. I love her character, but she's often quite frightening. I was impressed by the author's ability to write a young female character and do it very well. There are emphatically no perky anythings here, no bodice ripping, and absolutely zero flirty eyelashes to be found. 

Four and a half stars. Definitely one for lovers of well-crafted mysteries. I would heartily recommend it to fans of Hambly's Benjamin January and Peters' Cadfael (although different time periods and settings, obviously). 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes. 

[bookstagramofmine]

The title should sound familiar to most people. “The dead will rise again” is to quote the bible literally and invokes the Abrahamic concept of how the dead will be brought back to be judged on the day of judgment. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this implies the book may have a supernatural bent to it; it most certainly doesn’t. To invoke G. K. Chesterson, the crime novelist, in order to stay a crime novelist, must not hit above the body, and so our dead men stay dead men in this book.

 

The Dead Will Rise is a historical mystery set in Leeds in the 1820’s. It’s the 5th book in the Simon Westow Mysteries series by the author and came out on the 7th of March and was published by Severn House. It focuses on two characters, Jane, a teenage girl with a dark past and Simon, the local thief taker or PI. Simon and Jane are called to investigate the disappearance of little girls body from her grave, at a hand of some resurrectionists.

 

This was, unfortunately, a more common occurrence than one would imagine. Medical schools in the UK were only allowed to use the bodies of convicts (which weren’t very many) and so body snatchers (or resurrectionists) would steal dead bodies from the grave in the night to sell onto a medical school to make a bit of money. Opening up a grave was not considered a serious felony under the law and so thieves also knew that they themselves, at worst, would be imprisoned for some time. Medical schools rarely asked where the bodies came from, and it was hard to track down body snatchers, meaning most people just got away with it.

 

That being said, Simon and Jane take on this case knowing that the girl was wearing a  £2 dress that made this a theft with more serious punishment. As they go on they realize more powerful people are involved and there are more bodies that have been stolen and are attacked.

 

I liked the book and the slightly spooky vibe. You don’t know who is responsible and how things will turn out in the end. Jane is a phenomenal character and I loved how she wanted revenge so badly. I lowkey want to read the other books in the series just to get a bit more about her. However, I’m not sure I appreciate the deaths at the end of the book and how they were done. They didn’t make sense to me. I would read this author again!