In Victorian London, PI William Monk investigates a new game in town, the raping and beating of prostitutes by rich men. The probe leads him to the murder of a solicitor.

"[N]urse Hester Monk and her husband, William, commander of the Thames River Police, do desperate battle with two obsessed scientists who in the name of healing have turned to homicide. The monomaniacal Rand brothers--Magnus, a cunning doctor, and Hamilton, a genius chemist--are utterly ruthless in their pursuit of a cure for the fatal "white-blood disease." In London's Royal Naval Hospital annex, Hester is tending one of the brothers' dying patients--wealthy...

In 19th century England, investigator William Monk tries to save the life of an innocent woman accused of murdering her coachman. He thinks her refusal to clear her name is to protect a secret.

Investigating evidence of a violent struggle at the home of Ministry of Defense member Dudley Kynaston, Pitt and the Special Branch discover the brutally murdered body of a young woman before realizing that Kynaston is not who he appears to be.

Thomas Pitt, once a lowly policeman, is now the powerful head of Britain's Special Branch, and some people fear that he may have been promoted beyond his abilities. He, too, feels painful moments of self-doubt, especially as rumors reach him of a plot to blow up connections on the Dover-London rail line--on which Austrian duke Alois Habsburg is soon to travel to visit his royal English kin. Why would anyone destroy an entire train to kill one obscure...

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 a murdered body is discovered in the Thames, clues lead to a heinous child-pornography case that police superintendent William Monk thought he had left behind, in an investigation that threatens his friend Oliver Rathbone and forces Monk to consider painful sacrifices.