There are lots of books that do this. If you have an NT bias then have a look at William Stallings' book Operating Systems: Internals and Design Principles. Otherwise, Andrew Tanenbaum's Operating Systems: Design And Implementation is a classic, but may have a bit more of a source code than you want. A more concepts oriented book, and I think more what you are looking for would be Silberschatz and Galvin's Operating System Concepts. Any one of these will keep you out of mischief for a few weeks!

I have some C programming background but not at a low level - enough to pretty much understand the examples though. Would it be helpful to pick up a book on general operating system theory or kernel design and if so, can you suggest a good resource. I think I am understanding at a basic level what is going on in memory with the waits, latches and locks but would like a firmer understanding.