London, 1844: Two years after its creation, the Metropolitan Police's Detective Force is being humiliated by its inability to catch murderers. Detective Inspector Newsome decides to recruit a master criminal to aid his men in searching the darkest and most dangerous rookeries of the city. By luck, such a man falls into their hands: he is a total enigma, with no background and no apparent identity: a polymath with inexplicable skills. When the horrifying murder of a conjoined twin galvanises the city, Newsome blackmails his mystery prisoner into teaming up with their best man: Inspector George Williamson. The first in an enthralling new Victorian crime series: brilliantly written and seething with extraordinary and grotesque characters, James McCreet's striking debut will have readers gripped from its first macabre and scintillating pages.