In the posh London street of Paragon Walk, a young woman is brutally raped and murdered. Once again the incomparable team of sleuths, Inspector Thomas Pitt and his young wife, Charlotte, peer beneath the elegant masks of the well-born suspects and reveal that something ugly lurks behind the handsome facades of Paragon Walk-something that could lead to more scandal, and more murder....

It is 1896, and Thomas Pitt is in charge of Special Branch. He is beginning to understand the power he now commands, but is still ill at ease at the glittering events he and his wife Charlotte must attend. During a lavish party at the Spanish Embassy, a policeman breaks into Pitt's conversation with investor Rawdon Quixwood to break the terrible news that Quixwood's wife, Catherine, has been viciously assaulted at their home, and left for dead. Worse...

In Victorian England, Inspector Thomas Pitt is called upon to keep the peace during a heated general election and winds up investigating a murder tied to the Liberal candidate's Socialist, spiritualist wife--all the while unaware that his own family is also in danger.

It is a most incredible sight: a corpse sitting at the reins of a hansom cab -– and not just any corpse, but the body of a peer of the realm. To Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, this macabre apparition seems like sheer lunacy. Who would ever want to exhume a decently buried old chap like Lord Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond? A doctor insists that Lord Augustus’s death was natural. But as far as the police are concerned, there’s certainly...

Early one morning, Thomas Pitt, dauntless mainstay of the Special Branch, is summoned to Long Spoon Lane, where anarchists are plotting an attack. Bombs explode, destroying the homes of many poor people. After a chase, two of the culprits are captured and the leader is shot . . . but by whom? As Pitt delves into the case, he finds that there is more to the terrorism than the destructive gestures of misguided idealists. The police are running a lucrative...

1896. Newly promoted to Head of Special Branch, Thomas Pitt is forced to face the danger his new position brings when he uncovers the work of a traitor in his department. Not knowing who to trust, he must unmask the conspirator, whist simultaneously protecting a suspected target, Austrian state visitor Duke Alois. Meanwhile, Victor Narraway is investigating the mysterious death of Serafina Monserrat. Once the holder of many sensitive, political secrets,...