Loyal honest & above all principled. There is no finer detective in Victorian London than Thomas Pitt. It is 1896 & Thomas Pitt is in charge of Special Branch. He is beginning to understand the power he now commands but is still ill at ease at the glittering events he & his wife Charlotte must attend. During a lavish party at the Spanish Embassy a policeman breaks into Pitt's conversation with investor Rawdon Quixwood to break the terrible news that Quixwood's wife Catherine has been viciously assaulted at their home & left for dead. Worse still it appears that the assailant was someone she had trusted as she opened the door to the attacker herself. At the same party Charlotte sees Angeles Castelbranco an ambassador's daughter flinch in fear at the teasing of some young men. A few days later Angeles flees from the same group & in her terror falls from a window
- what could have caused her to take that fatal step? Pitt & his friend Victor Narraway vow to uncover the unspoken truth behind these two women's deaths. But as they investigate deception & violence get ever nearer & danger is only ever one step away...