Hazel Sinnett wants to be a surgeon. As the daughter of an army captain, financially she has the ability to pursue her own dreams (a distracted mother helps too.) While Hazel is pursuing her dreams, poor people are turning up dead, or missing body parts, and not remembering how or why. 

The path to being a doctor or surgeon is not easy for Hazel. She briefly dresses as a man to attend classes until she is discovered. Her fiancé doesn't believe in her dreams. Her older brother died before the start of the book, and her mother spends all her time protecting and doting on the younger brother who is now the heir. All this is in addition to meeting Jack Currier, a resurrection man who digs up dead bodies for doctors to study. 

This book is a captivating mystery set in a time we were still learning about surgery and inoculation. The surgical parts were a little too descriptive for me at times and I found myself skimming them.