The freshly dead body sprawled on the Bedford Square doorstep of General Brandon Balantyne is an affront to every respectable sensibility. The general denies all knowledge of the shabbily dressed victim who has so rudely come to death outside his home, but Superintendent Thomas Pitt cannot believe him—for in the dead man's pocket, Pitt finds a rare snuffbox that recently graced the general's study.

The superintendent must tread lightly,

...

"The sooty streets of Victorian London are crawling with nefarious characters, and Bridie Devine--female detective extraordinaire--must confront her most remarkable puzzle yet: the kidnapping of Christabel Berwick. Winding her way through a mystery as labyrinthine as the city streets, Bridie won't rest until she finds Christabel, even if it means unearthing a past that she'd rather keep buried--

"Still reeling from the death of her fiance, Detective Anna Travis has thrown herself into her new role as the chief inspector for London's murder squad. When Scotland Yard's missing persons bureau is unable to locate the son of a court employee, the superintendent--James Langton, Anna's former lover turned sometimes friend--urges her to take on the suspicious assignment. But is this new investigation purely a missing persons case--or a full-blown...

Thomas Pitt, once a lowly policeman, is now the powerful head of Britain's Special Branch, and some people fear that he may have been promoted beyond his abilities. He, too, feels painful moments of self-doubt, especially as rumors reach him of a plot to blow up connections on the Dover-London rail line--on which Austrian duke Alois Habsburg is soon to travel to visit his royal English kin. Why would anyone destroy an entire train to kill one obscure...