Speakers of the Dead

Before becoming America’s greatest poet, Walt Whitman was a fearless journalist, bent on exposing crime and corruption in New York City. Follow him through the dark underbelly of New York’s toughest precincts in Speakers of the Dead.

The year is 1843; the place: New York City. Aurora reporter Walt Whitman arrives at the Tombs prison yard where his friend Lena Stowe is scheduled to hang for the murder of her husband, Abraham. Walt intends to present evidence on Lena's behalf, but the police turn him away. Lena drops to her death, Walt vows to exonerate her.

When Walt's estranged friend Henry Saunders returns to New York, the two men uncover a link between body snatching and Abraham's murder: a man named Samuel Clement. To get to Clement, Walt and Henry descend into a dangerous underworld where resurrection men steal the bodies of the recently deceased and sell them to medical colleges. With no legal means to acquire cadavers, medical students are forced to rely on these criminals to advance their research, a practice that Abraham detested. Abraham’s involvement with the Bone Bill, legislation that would put the resurrection men out of business, seems to have led to his and Lena’s deaths – and Walt is determined to connect the evidence.

Fast-paced and gripping, Speakers of the Dead is a vibrant reimagining of one of America's most beloved literary figures.