It is not just the living who are prey to London’s criminals and cutpurses. Corpses, too, are fair game–dug up from fresh graves and sold to unscrupulous men of science. Dr. Thomas Silkstone abhors such methods, but his leading rival, John Hunter, has learned of the imminent death of eight-foot-tall Charles Byrne, known as the “Irish Giant,” and will go to any lengths to obtain the body for his research.