Set in London in 1826, but recalling a later Dickensian city, The Resurrectionist is about to become a very popular book indeed. This is due in part to being annointed by Richard and Judy, but also because The Resurrectionist is a grimly entertaining and claustrophobic story of grave-robbing and madness.

Gabriel Swift, brought up by a respectable family following the death of his destitute, alcoholic father, is apprenticed to Edwin Poll, the most famous anatomist of the day. Gabriel’s job is to prepare cadavers delivered at night by competing gangs of grave-robbing “resurrectionists”. A memorable grand guignol first chapter sets this scene and we instantly know we are in for an atmospheric and grisly ride.

Having established the backdrop of disinterment and dissection, Bradley goes on to tell the story of Swift’s inexorable descent into purgatory, exile and madness. Although outwardly an upstanding member of the gentry and an ambitious trainee surgeon, Gabriel is adrift, apart and alone. Bemused by everything, Swift lives in a detached, dreamlike state, almost a spectator of his own life. Swift respects his master, Poll, but is more drawn to Lucan, shadowy king of the criminal trade in stolen bodies and still more to an unexplained need to tear down his respectable life in London.

This then is a story of existential nihilism. Not in an affirmative “I exist” way, rather a perplexed reaction to the perceived gossamer-thinness of his life, to the unbearable lightness of being. To Swift, nothing is permanent, nothing is real, nothing is possible and his desire to try and fit in is far outweighed by his desire for oblivion. From his work and the people he deals with, Swift sees how everybodys’ hold on whatever it is their life is, is so infinitesimally slight and broken so easily by the merciless city, that anything Swift might build is rendered meaningless. Briefly diverted by the possibilities of human connections, Swift cannot live with this bleak awareness. Incapable of shaping his future and in any case not seeing the point in doing so, Swift begins to drag it all down.

In his journey downwards, Swift does not undergo any protracted change from wide-eyed innocent to seeker of dark pleasures, to willing self-destructionist. There is no single turning point, no catalyst. I’m still not entirely sure if this is deliberately pointless or whether perhaps The Resurrectionist is just slightly underwritten. In the end The Resurrectionist is well enough told to grant Bradley the benefit of the doubt and to place it alongside another novel of oblivion, madness and Victorian sewerage, Clare Clark’s excellent, The Great Stink.

Although set 40 years earlier, The Resurrectionist is at heart a mid-Century, Gothic sensation novel, full of atmosphere and detail. In some places the speech patterns seem inspired by the rhythms and cadences of a BBC period drama, but then again I suppose this is an established stylistic shorthand. Many other expected tropes of 19th Century London are also present and correct – opium, Seven Dials prostitutes, Mayfair dandies, foundlings, hansom cabs, riding britches, taffeta and the rest. Best of all are the nocturnal grave-robbers themselves, pure Dickensian villains emerging from the shadows and the pages of Our Mutual Friend and nonetheless enjoyable for it.

If the story is bleak and the setting grim, the telling of the tale is horrifically entertaining and The Resurrectionist is a novel that will live long in the memory. Richard and Judy will be pleased.

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