A beautifully told and spellbinding tale of an outcast in the London underworld of the 1830s. I can't help but wonder if the author drew inspiration from the nonfiction book The Italian Boy; the similarities are too many to ignore. ( )

After Victor's parents are murdered, he leaves Italian village and signs onto a merchant ship. A fight with another crewman results in his being injured and thrown overboard. Found on shore in England, he is sold to two disreputable "resurrection men" who set him up as a beggar. Poor children's lives were worthless in 1830's London. This is the story of how he and others struggled to live, often died and were taken advantage of. Victor's story has a happy ending - many others did not. Resurrection men were in the business of stealing corpses or otherwise obtaining bodies for medical research. ( )

T.K. Welsh’s last book, The Unresolved, was one of my favorites of 2006, and Resurrection Men doesn’t disappoint. In the 1830’s, an Italian boy witnesses his parents being murdered, and is then sold as a cabin boy on a ship. A bad fall from the rigging means he’s no longer useful so he’s thrown overboard. Miraculously, he makes it to shore and is found by an old man who nurses him back to health, only to sell him to a couple of “resurrection men” whose job is to procure corpses for doctors to autopsy. He makes his way to London, where he plunges into the worst of the underbelly of society — beggars, prostitutes, thieves and murderers. After many trials and tribulations, the boy’s decency and courage help him rise above the life he’s been forced to live.
Of course, the inevitable comparison to Dickens’ Oliver Twist comes to mind, but Resurrection Men is far more than that. Welsh makes the horrific living conditions, especially those for children, come alive here. Welsh doesn’t rely on innuendo, but lays it all out, from the dens of beggar children to the trade in child prostitution, so the reader comes to know that living in London in the 1830’s was anything but idyllic. Reading this, I was reminded of a book I read years ago called The Anti-Society by Kellow Chesney which described the lives of the poor during the reign of Queen Victoria. Most history books recount the glorious reign of the Queen and ignore the harsh reality lived by her poorest subjects. Welsh succeeds to bringing that reality to vivid life. If you want to read more on this topic, adults can try The Great Stink by Clare Clark or Victorian London by Liza Picard, while younger readers will enjoy The Whispering Road by Livi Michael. ( )

A very well-written and grisly fictional account based on the body-snatching trials of the early 1800's. The protagonist is a teenage orphan boy who ends up discovering the horrible truth about what is happening to friends of his that disappear. The only thing I didn't like about the book is that it spent lots of time on the protagonist's life before he ever ended up having experience with the body-snatchers. Some of this was a bit boring (while well-written and detailed), especially the nautical portion of the book. I'm afraid some kids might put the book down at that point and never pick it back up. Welsh doesn't hook you at the beginning. That doesn't happen to more than midway through the book ( )

Reviewed by Christian C. for TeensReadToo.com

1830, Modena, Italy. 12-year-old Victor returned to his home and had to watch with horror the cruel murder of his parents by three Tyrolean soldiers. The reason? They were Carboniaris, a group of revolutionaries that fought to keep Italy united.

After the massacre, the soldiers sold Victor as a cabin boy to the Chief Mate of the Ceres, a ship that was about to set sail. The ship departed from Italy, and sailed along the Mediterranean coast through the Strait of Gibraltar. It sailed past the coasts of Portugal, northern Spain, and France.

One day, in the middle of a big storm, Victor climbed up the mainmast, all the way to the topgallant, trying to escape from a crew member whom he had accused of stealing food. But as the seaman drew closer, Victor lost his footing, fell on the deck, and crushed his leg completely. The Chief Mate didn't think twice: "A cabin boy who cannot walk is of no value to this ship.... Throw him overboard." Which he did.

Clinging to a gaff, Victor drifted in the middle of the sea for several days, until he arrived at the coast of England. He was rescued by an old man and his dog. The old man treated his leg, fed him, and taught him how to speak English and fight with his crutch.

After a few months, the old man couldn't afford to keep Victor any more and, once again, Victor was sold. This time to Tipple and Biggs, two unscrupulous men who took Victor to London, by hiding him in a coffin with a decaying body.

In London, Victor lived in a house full of children and animals. He was forced to beg in the streets during the day. Life in London at that time was difficult: jobs were scarce, health conditions were deplorable, the streets were full of excrement and mud; people were dying of cholera. Victor soon discovered that there was a black market for dead bodies and body parts. Doctors wanted to study the human body and were willing to pay high amounts of money for them. People like Tripple and Biggs met the demand, and were willing to do anything for a few guineas, including digging up corpses, kidnapping, selling, or even killing someone. Victor found out that Tripple and Biggs were after some of his friends, and he decided that he had to reveal the mastermind of this wicked market and put an end to it.

RESURRECTION MEN is an intense, dark work of historical fiction that made me read every page intently to the end, while trying to cope with the knot of sadness and anguish that I had in my stomach. T. K. Welsh's rich vocabulary and detailed descriptions, where almost no noun goes without an adjective, transported me to the streets of London, and made me smell the putrid odors of the city, live the horrors of the children's lives, witness the horrid dissections of the dead bodies, and hear the unsettling noise of the broken bones.

When I finished the novel, I was looking forward to reading the section at the end of the book that explained which historical facts of the book were real, but unfortunately, there was none.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes historical fiction and is interested in learning more about an unfortunate time in the history of medicine and the city of London. But if you're looking for a fun, happy read, this may not be it! ( )