1929. A girl is strangled in a London alley the mangled corpse of a peeping Tom is found in a railway tunnel & the details of the latest trunk murder are updated hourly in the evening papers. Into this world steps Dora Strang doctors daughter & filing clerk to the countrys pre-eminent pathologist Alfred Kemble. Thrilled by the post-mortems & court cases Dora is further fascinated by Kemble himself a glamorous & enigmatic war hero. But her job holds several surprises & as things take a distinctly ghastly turn the tabloid journalists sharpen their pencils in morbid anticipation...