"Resurrection men" is also a name applied to those who engage in the practice of body-snatching

Body-snatching

Body snatching is the secret disinterment of corpses from graveyards. A common purpose of body snatching is to sell the corpses for dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools...

.

Resurrection Men is a 2002 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin, OBE, DL , is a Scottish crime writer. His best known books are the Inspector Rebus novels. He has also written several pieces of literary criticism.-Background:He attended Beath High School, Cowdenbeath...

. It is the thirteenth of the Inspector Rebus

Inspector Rebus

The Inspector Rebus books are a series of detective novels by the Scottish author Ian Rankin. The novels, centred on the title character Detective Inspector John Rebus, are mostly based in and around Edinburgh.-Content and style:...

 novels.

Plot summary

Detective Inspector John Rebus

Detective Inspector John Rebus

Detective Inspector John Rebus is the protagonist in the Inspector Rebus series of detective novels by the Scottish writer Ian Rankin, ten of which have so far been televised as Rebus...

 is thrown off a murder inquiry, just days after the brutal death of an Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 art dealer, for throwing a cup of tea at DCS Gill Templer. He is sent to the Scottish Police College

Scottish Police College

The Scottish Police College, based at Tulliallan Castle, in Kincardine-on-Forth, provides basic training to all new recruits to the Scottish Police Forces....

 for 'retraining' - this is his 'Last Chance Saloon'.

He is put with a team of officers in similar circumstances and together they are given an unsolved case to work on. This turns out to be one in which many of the team are already involved, and they all have their own secrets that they wish to keep hidden. Rebus is asked to act as a go-between for Edinburgh gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty, and newly promoted DS Siobhan Clarke, while working the case of the murdered art dealer, is brought closer to Cafferty than she ever expected.

As always the cases are all linked and Rebus must use his trusted friends to uncover the truth before the truth uncovers him.

The title is a reference to the body-snatchers

Body-snatching

Body snatching is the secret disinterment of corpses from graveyards. A common purpose of body snatching is to sell the corpses for dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools...

of the 19th century, who were known as 'resurrectionists' or 'resurrection men'.