'Some of our ideas are not of the most orthodox nature. They would be frowned upon in a more traditional scientific environment, perhaps even laughed at.'
London 1858 - the Lazarus Club. Some of the finest, most-unconventional minds in Victorian Britain - including Charles Darwin, Joseph Bazalgette, Charles Babbage, Isambard Kingdom Brunel - are members of this illustrious, but clandestine, brotherhood. Their meetings take place in secret, their discussions are revolutionary and their conclusions sometimes forbidden . . .
Knowing nothing of this furtive society, Dr George Phillips, a young ambitious surgeon, is mystified to see Brunel at his lecture on the workings of the heart. Their acquaintance is made over a well-used cadaver in the gory pit of the dissection theatre, it becomes apparent that the great engineer has mysterious plans for the good doctor.
And so Phillips becomes embroiled in the enigmatic machinations of the Lazarus Club, little expecting that in the midst of their unorthodox ideas, a black conspiracy lurks. Not only is his own life in jeopardy, but as the first mutilated body is washed up on the banks of the Thames so the very foundations of Victorian society are rocked to their core . . .