The Potteries, 1829. It's a harsh world and nowhere is it harsher than at the Bone Mill. This is Joseph Ryder's world. A teenage orphan, Joseph ekes out a hand-to-mouth living one step ahead of the workhouse, spending his few extra coppers trying to contact his dead mother through his landlady and medium, Gerda. When his foreman, Sewell, offers him a chance to earn a few extra shillings, Joseph jumps at the chance and soon finds himself dragged into a deadly sideline business involving the House of Recovery and the slimy local anatomist, Mr Furness.
