The Specimens

Up the close and down the stair, meet the women of Burke and Hare

'A work of fiction that is both a potent portrait of early 19th-century Edinburgh but also a story about female agency or the lack of it. The result is a compelling, painful, haunted piece of work.'

'Beguiling and atmospheric, this is as much an engrossing character study as a bold reimagining of the infamous anatomy murders.'

'A fresh, feminine take on the horrors of Burke and Hare and their complicit Edinburgh anatomists'

'Vivid and discomfiting, written with compassion and a draughtswoman's eye for detail, Mairi Kidd holds a lantern up to the brutality of women's lives in Burke, Hare and Knox's Edinburgh. She draws a fine thread between women's bodily experiences now and then, and her voice is so authentic I felt as if I was there'

'Gruesomely gripping, this story will stay with you for a long time, its characters so well developed, you fear you might bump into one in a dark Edinburgh close'

Mairi Kidd graduated with a First in Celtic Studies from the University of Edinburgh and has worked in books ever since. Her novel The Specimens - a retelling of the 1828 crimes of Burke and Hare - was Waterstones Scottish
Book of the Month and the short stories from her collection We Are All Witches formed the basis for the award-winning 'Heal and Harrow' project.
She lives by the sea in Edinburgh with her illustrator husband and their rescue cat.