London in 1856 is gripped by a frightening obsession. The specimen-collecting craze is growing & discoveries in far-off jungles are reshaping the known world in terrible & unimaginable ways. When the glamorous Lady Bessingham is found murdered in her bedroom surrounded by her vast collection of fossils & tribal masks Professor Adolphus Hatton & his morgue assistant Albert Roumande are called in to examine the crime scene
- & the body. In the new & suspicious world of forensics & autopsy examinations Hatton & Roumande are the best. But the crime scene is not confined to one room. In their efforts to help the infamous Scotland Yard detective Inspector Adams track down the Ladys killer Hatton & Roumande uncover a trail of murders connected to a packet of seditious letters that if published would change the face of society & religion irrevocably. D.E. Merediths measured prose & eye for exquisite detail moves seamlessly from the filthy docks on the Isle of Dogs to the jungles of Borneo & the drawing rooms of Londons upper class. Her slow-burning mystery builds to a shocking conclusion consuming Victorian London
- & victims
- as it goes.