Miller Andrew. Pure

Pure by Andrew Miller is a story set in Paris in 1785, pestilence and revolution are in the air. The problem? The cemetery, Les Innocents, in the centre of Paris is full, it stinks and it's poisoning Paris. The task - to empty the cemetery and to make it pure.
A story about destruction - destruction of much more than the church of Saint Innocents and its graveyard. It tackles the great themes of life: birth and death, innocence and experience, purity and decay, love and violence reason and madness.
This is a true story (and true stories are the best) as the cemetery of the Innocents did exist, the remains in the tombs and mass graves were exhumed, the corpses were deposited in what is now called the Paris Catacombs.Pure Was 2011 Winner of the Costa Book Award.