1. What Angels Fear
In London in 1811, actress Rachel York is found murdered on the altar steps of a church near Westminster Abbey. A pistol and a witness place Sebastian St. Cyr at the scene, forcing the former cavalry officer to flee before the authorities can hang him for…
2. When Gods Die
A young marchioness is murdered during a royal gathering and discovered in the arms of the Prince Regent. The necklace around her throat once belonged to Sebastian's mother, who was believed to have died at sea, giving him a personal reason to investigate the victim's movements…
3. Why Mermaids Sing
The mutilated bodies of young men from prominent London families are left in public places with strange objects in their mouths. When another victim is found beside the House of Lords, Sebastian is asked to interpret the ritual pattern before the killer claims the next heir.…
4. Where Serpents Sleep
Hero Jarvis survives an attack on a refuge for women in which eight residents are murdered and the building is set alight. Convinced the authorities intend to dismiss the dead as expendable, she asks Sebastian to help identify the attackers and the woman they were determined…
5. What Remains of Heaven
In 1812, the reform-minded Bishop of London is found bludgeoned to death in a church crypt. Beside him lies the remains of another man killed decades earlier, and Sebastian must determine why the bishop entered the sealed vault and how the two deaths are connected. The…
6. Where Shadows Dance
Paul Gibson buys a cadaver from body snatchers and discovers that the supposedly natural death of Foreign Office clerk Alexander Ross was caused by a stiletto wound. Because Gibson obtained the body illegally, Sebastian must investigate without revealing either the murder or the source of the…
7. When Maidens Mourn
Sebastian and Hero's honeymoon is interrupted when Hero's friend Gabrielle Tennyson is found murdered in a boat at Camlet Moat. Gabrielle's two young cousins have disappeared, and the household's conflicting accounts make it unclear whether the children were taken, killed or hidden. The couple investigate Arthurian…
8. What Darkness Brings
Russell Yates, the privateer who married Sebastian's former lover Kat Boleyn, is found beside the murdered gem dealer Benjamin Eisler. Yates insists he was framed, and Sebastian agrees to find the killer before the evidence sends him to the gallows. A missing blue diamond leads through…
9. Why Kings Confess
A French doctor is mutilated and murdered in a London slum, while the badly injured Alexi Sauvage is found nearby. Sebastian knows Alexi from a wartime disaster and discovers that the dead physician belonged to a secret French delegation exploring peace between Napoleon and Britain. The…
10. Who Buries the Dead
Plantation owner Stanley Preston is found decapitated at Bloody Bridge, with a coffin strap marked for King Charles I lying near the body. Preston's family ties to the Home Secretary and his wealth from West Indian slavery ensure that both the government and Sebastian's father-in-law take…
11. When Falcons Fall
Sebastian and Hero travel to Ayleswick-on-Teme to honour a dead friend, only to be drawn into the murder of a young widow found beside the river. The victim called herself Emma Chance, but her papers and recent movements suggest that both her name and her purpose…
12. Where the Dead Lie
The body of homeless child Benji Thatcher is discovered after his abduction, and his younger sister remains missing. When officials show little interest, Sebastian traces the children's movements and finds evidence that other vulnerable boys and girls have disappeared in similar circumstances. The investigation leads from…
13. Why Kill the Innocent
During the severe winter of 1814, musician Jane Ambrose is found murdered in a snowdrift. Her employment in the household of Princess Charlotte alarms the palace, which tries to prevent questions about the heir presumptive and the rival factions seeking to control her future. Sebastian and…
14. Who Slays the Wicked
Lord Ashworth is found brutally murdered only months after Sebastian failed to prove his involvement in crimes against London children. Ashworth's estranged wife Stephanie, Sebastian's young niece, has just survived the birth of twins and immediately becomes the most convenient suspect. Sebastian examines the dead man's…
15. Who Speaks for the Damned
As allied royalty gathers in London in June 1814 to celebrate Napoleon's defeat, Nicholas Hayes is found murdered after secretly returning from transportation in New South Wales. The disgraced nobleman was believed dead, and the young boy who travelled with him disappears before anyone can establish…
16. What the Devil Knows
In October 1814, former investigator Sir Edwin Pym is killed in a manner that echoes the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811. Those earlier killings ended after sailor John Williams died in custody, but the new death suggests that the wrong man may have been blamed. Sebastian…
17. When Blood Lies
Sebastian and Hero travel to Paris in March 1815 to find his long-missing mother, Sophie, only for Sebastian to discover her dying near the Île de la Cité. She had been living under an assumed name with a former Napoleonic marshal now serving the restored Bourbon…
18. Who Cries for the Lost
While London waits for news of the armies converging on Waterloo, the mutilated body of Major Miles Sedgewick is pulled from the Thames. The victim was secretly married to Alexi Sauvage, lover of Sebastian's friend Paul Gibson, placing both of them in danger of arrest. Sebastian…
19. What Cannot Be Said
Soon after Waterloo, Lady McInnis and her daughter are found murdered in Richmond Park, their bodies arranged like figures on medieval tombs. The staging repeats the unsolved murder of magistrate Henry Lovejoy's wife and daughter fourteen years earlier, for which a traumatised former soldier was hanged.…
20. Who Will Remember
In August 1816, crop failure, relentless rain and post-war unemployment leave London close to unrest. Lord Preston Farnsworth is found hanging upside down in a ruined chapel, posed like the Hanged Man tarot card, and an orphan who led Sebastian to the body vanishes. The dead…
21. When the Wolves Are Silent
In London in 1816, aristocrat Marcus Toole is burned alive on a hill used by neo-Druids. Sebastian's nephew Bayard was with him before the attack but claims to remember nothing, leaving Sebastian and Hero to determine whether he is a witness, a target or part of…