At South Carolina Medical College, Dr Jacob Thacker is on probation for Xanax abuse. His interim career-working in the university's public relations department-takes an unnerving detour into the past when the bones of African American slaves are unearthed on campus.

In the nineteenth century, Nemo (no man), a slave purchased for his unusual knife skills, becomes an unacknowledged member of the surgical faculty by day-and by night, a resurrectionist, responsible for procuring bodies for medical study.

With exceptional storytelling, pacing and skill, Matthew Guinn relates a gothic tale of shocking crimes and exquisite revenge, a riveting and satisfying moral parable of the American South.