When Charlotte learns of her mother's distress in losing a locket with a compromising picture, she has no idea that it's just the beginning of a series of bizarre events that will end in sudden death.

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 he finds a rare snuffbox that recently graced the general's study. He must tread lightly, however, lest his investigation...

Pitt investigates the murder of a maid at Buckingham Palace, narrowing his group of suspects down to several house guests who are meeting with the Prince of Wales to discuss the funding of a huge project: the Cape to Cairo railway. While the Prince might overlook the unfortunate loss of a maid, the Queen, who is due back soon, will likely veto any Royal support in the scheme if she finds out.

In the Victorian London stunned by the sensational crimes of a madman named Jack the Ripper, a tragic fire in the peaceful suburb of Highgate goes unmarked and an innocent woman has died in it.

When the bodies of two high-profile women are discovered bearing signs of rape and an innocent man is accused of the crime, Thomas Pitt's quest for the truth forces him to play a dangerous game of international politics and murder.

When Commander Thomas Pitt is ordered to protect a young woman visiting London from Spain, he cannot see why this is a job for Special Branch. When she disappears in the dead of night from Angel Court, however, he is faced with a dangerous mystery. Sofia preached new, and some say blasphemous, religious ideals, and her life had been threatened. But Pitt senses there is some deeper and more dangerous reason for her kidnap -- if that is what it is....

When an explosion in London kills two policemen and seriously injures three more, many believe that anarchists are the culprits. But Thomas Pitt, commander of Special Branch, knows the city's radical groups well enough to suspect otherwise: that someone with decidedly more personal motives lit the deadly fuse. As he investigates the source of the fatal blast, he's stunned to discover the bombing was a calculated strike against the ranks of law enforcement....

Privately summoned by Queen Victoria when one of her closest confidantes is found murdered, Thomas Pitt navigates the secretive world of London society in what becomes the most dangerous case of his career.