Photographer Sarah Bain and her friends Lord Hugh Staunton and sometime street urchin Mick O'Reilly are private detectives with a new gig: photographing crime scenes for London's Daily World newspaper. The Daily World is the latest business venture of their sole client, Sir Gerald Mariner, a fabulously wealthy and powerful banker. One cold, snowy January morning, Sarah, Hugh, and Mick are summoned to the goriest crime scene they've ever encountered....

In the aftermath of a woman's brutal attack in 1701 Japan, samurai detective turned chamberlain Sano Ichiro suspects the true motives of a formerly exiled rival who has been oddly cooperative, a situation that is further complicated by a relative's disappearance.

"Japan, 1709. The shogun is old and ailing. Amid the ever-treacherous intrigue in the court, Sano Ichirō has been demoted from chamberlain to a lowly patrol guard. His relationship with his wife Reiko is in tatters, and a bizarre new alliance between his two enemies Yanagisawa and Ienobu has left him bewildered and wary. Yet, Sano's dedication to the way of the warrior--the samurai code of honor--is undiminished. Then a harrowing, almost inconceivable...

While investigating the murder of a woman whose torso has been found, crime photographer and investigator Sarah Bain Barrett is pitted against a bitter enemy who is hell-bent on discovering what she and her close-knit band of comrades know about the killer, threatening both her marriage and her friendships.

"Investigating a brutal murder attempt on a woman in 1890 London, crime-scene photographer Sarah Bain and her friends are baffled when three different families claim the victim, who awakens without a memory of her identity." --Publisher.