Review: The Dead Shall Not Rest by Tess Harris

Author: Tessa Harris
Publisher: Kensington
Date of publication: December 2012

The brilliant anatomist Dr. Thomas Silkstone returns in Tessa Harris's vivid and compelling mystery series set in 1780s London. . .It is not just the living who are prey to London's criminals and cutpurses. Corpses, too, are fair game--dug up from fresh graves and sold to unscrupulous men of science. Dr. Thomas Silkstone abhors such methods, but his leading rival, Dr. John Hunter, has learned of the imminent death of eight-foot-tall Charles Byrne, known as the "Irish Giant," and will go to any lengths to obtain the body for his research.

The Dead Shall Not Rest is the sequel to The Anatomists' Apprentice.  I enjoyed the first book a lot (our joint review), so I had high hopes for this one.  While I liked it, I didn't love it.  I felt like there were too many plot lines going at once.   As I was reading, the story felt disjointed and dull at times.  In the end, everything was woven together neatly and made sense.  There was also one or two twists in there, but for the most part it was all just OK for me. 

I thought that the entire plot line with Thomas' fiance was unnecessary.  Lydia never struck me as the type of person to try to take her own life no matter what the circumstances.  At least not from how I remembered her in the first book.  It looks like the entire scenario was a set up for part of the plot for the next book.  I got that; I just didn't like it.    The other characters were loosely based on real life historical figures.  The gruesome parts that they play in the book did make me want to look them up on my own to read more about them.

Will I read the next one?  Probably. I just hope it is a little more entertaining.