HERE'S a dark and lurid tale, full of post-mortem surgery and grave robbery, drug taking and destruction, mixed with philosophical pondering on what it means to be human.

Australian novelist Bradley tells a two-part tale, mostly set in the London of the 1820s, with a shorter second section set in Australia a few years later.

Gabriel Swift, in flight from his father's tragic failures, heads to London to study with Edwin Poll, a great anatomist, but falls spectacularly from grace, and ends up opium-addled and working for Poll's nemesis, Lucan, the resurrectionist of the title.

With demand high for bodies to be used by medical students, Swift slips deeper into grisly disrepute, digging up bodies to sell, and eventually having a hand in murder for profit.

This powerful novel is occasionally confusing, floating as it does on a tide of opium and lost hope, and frequently chilling, yet it exerts a tight grip throughout.