'Very entertaining and impressively researched' D. J. Taylor

A desperate plea from her former lover, the aristocrat Arthur DeSalle, turns Sarah Tanner's quiet life upside down.

Arthur needs Sarah's help. Suspicious of the hold that Dr Stead, renowned practitioner of the strange art of mesmerism, has gained on his ageing parents, he hopes to expose him as a fraud.

But Mrs Tanner faces trouble closer to home - a gang of increasingly violent Lambeth youths are intent, it seems, on putting her out of business. What is their interest in her humble Dining and Coffee Rooms? And what is the closely guarded secret which connects the sinister doctor to the young thugs, and threatens to destroy a family's honour?

Her very life at stake, her loyalty tested, Sarah Tanner sets out on a trail of murder and deceit, which stretches from the alleys of Leather Lane to the drawing-rooms of Mayfair...

'L. M. Jackson is deft with his dovetailing, and it is a pleasure to follow Sarah Tanner as she outfoxes the villains.' The Telegraph

'Victorian murder mysteries don't come better' Frank Tallis