The latest book to be read by the Salford Angels book club is The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen. The Bone Garden entwines two stories together; that of Julia which is set in the present day and that of Rose and Norris, set in 1830.

Julia is disturbed to find a 100 year old skull in her new back garden. Following the inevitable press coverage, Henry, an elderly relative of the houses’ previous owner, contacts Julia and together they begin the search for the identity of the bones through boxes of hoarded letters. It is through reading these letters that we are transported to Boston in 1830; a terrifying world where to have a child almost certainly means death and medical schools are forced to pay resurrectionsists to dig up corpses to provide autopsy subjects for their students. Rose, whose sister dies during the Childbed Fever epidemic and Norris, a young impoverished medical student find themselves brought together by an even greater horror; the West End Reaper.

During the book club meeting we all agreed that the book was very hard to read due to its explicit nature and descriptions of medical procedures that take place. Although, as Tess Gerritsen herself points out, she was shocked to discover the truth of the medical world at this time in history. It is thanks to one of the novels main characters, Oliver Wendell Holmes, that the medical world improved greatly, as he discovered the importance of hand washing. So it is perhaps understandable that she would want to show exactly why his discovery was so important and what has been prevented because of it.

The Angels book club has awarded the Bone Garden 6.5/10. A good story, laced with historical realism but hard to read for the more squeamish among us, due to the gory descriptions.