
A small crowd of passengers stood beside the piles of luggage & a collective gasp of horror went up. As the lid of the hatbox flipped open, its contents were tipped roughly out. Rolling around on the platform was a human head. Hordes of people are on their way to Derby Day at Epsom Downs: dukes & dustmen, bishops & beggars, privileged ladies & prostitutes. The gamut of Victorian society & a hotbed for crime & crooks of all kinds. Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck & his assistant are assigned to the case of the disembodied head, a murky course of events that takes in murder, fraud & race-fixing. Just how much is someone prepared to risk in order to win?