Description
A story of sex, drugs and blasphemy in late 17th C Edinburgh experienced through four viewpoints. After participating in the particularly gruesome autopsy of a pregnant prisoner, Dr Robert Carruth is unable to consummate his marriage to Isobel. He buries himself in work, and his overzealousness contributes to the demise of a struggling apothecary named James Aikenhead. Fifteen years later the apothecary’s son, Thomas, appears at the Carruths’ door seeking recompense for his father’s death. At his side is Mungo Craig, a cunning poet with dubious loyalties. The two insinuate their way into Robert and Isobel’s life, freshly exposing old fault lines in the Carruths’ marriage and subjecting them to dangerous new pressure.
