Clemency Shaw, the wife of a prominent doctor, has died in a tragic fire.  But whether the blaze was set by an arsonist aiming for the doctor, or set by the doctor himself, Pitt is not certain.  With the scarcity of clues, Pitt turns to Clemency’s stuffy but distinguished relatives.  Meanwhile Charlotte retraces the dangerous path that Clemency walked the last months of her life, and finds herself enmeshed in a sinister web that stretches from the lowest slums to the loftiest centres of power...

Belgrave Square.    When low-life money lender William Weems is found murdered, there are few to mourn his passing.  But when Pitt finds a list containing the names of some of London’s most distinguished gentlemen in the murdered man’s office, he recognises the smell of blackmail.  While Pitt investigates the victims of Weems’ cupidity, Charlotte and Emily have entree into London’s upper crust that is closed to routine police investigation.  The sinister influence of a secret society becomes apparent...

When a distinguished judge dies of opium poisoning, the death, by crucifixion, five years before, of Kingsley Blaine is brought back into the public eye and it is screaming for revenge.  The police had arrested a Jewish actor who is condemned to be hanged soon.  Pitt, who is investigating the judge’s death finds that the judge was about to reopen the earlier case.  While Pitt faces a wall of silence from officialdom Charlotte uses her high society connexions and they both come to the same sinister and deeply dangerous truth...

Newly promoted Pitt has to investigate the gruesome beheadings of three apparently unconnected victims but he is bedevilled by a lack of cooperation from his superiors, Charlotte is pre-occupied with moving house and Emily is absorbed with her husband Jack’s election to Parliament.  Together they uncover domestic scandals and the invisible hand of the evil secret society, the Inner Circle...

Someone in the Colonial Office is passing secrets to Germany about England’s Africa policy.  While Pitt investigates this treason, he is quietly looking into the tragic ‘accidental death’ of his childhood mentor, Sir Arthur Desmond.  Pitt believes he was murdered and that the crime is connected with the treachery in the Government.  Only when a Thames waterman finds the strangled body of a society beauty floating near Traitor’s Gate, do Pitt and Charlotte untangle the threads of passion and intrigue...

The ritual murder of a prostitute in a bedroom in decrepit Pentecost Alley would ordinarily cause little commotion, but under the victim’s body was found a Hellfire Club badge inscribed with the name of the prominent Finlay Fitzjames, son of a wealthy businessman and soon to be appointed as an ambassador.  The case appears closed when the prostitute’s pimp confesses, is tried and hanged, but then another identical murder takes place, and the case is thrown wide open again.  Emily befriends the sister of Finlay Fitzjames and together they unmask the real culprit while Pitt battles against the accusations of police incompetence.

When a group of powerful Irish Protestants and Catholics gather at a country house, Ashworth Hall, to discuss Irish home rule, contention is to be expected, but when the meeting’s moderator, government bigwig Ainsley Greville, is found murdered in his bath, negotiations seem doomed.  To make matters worse, it seems that the late Greville had a less than savoury private life.  Pitt and Charlotte must root out the truth or the simmering passions and hatred may boil over to plunge Ireland into civil war and destruction...

In affluent Brunswick Gardens the battle over Charles Darwin’s revolutionary theory of evolution intensifies as the respected Reverend Parmenter is boldly challenged by his beautiful assistant, Unity Bellwood, a ‘new woman’, whose feminism and aggressive Darwinism he finds appalling.  When Unity, three months pregnant, tumbles down the staircase to her death, Pitt is certain that one of the three deeply devout men in the house has committed the murder, but which one...

The freshly dead body sprawled on the doorstep of General Brandon Ballantyne’s home, is an affront to every respectable sensitivity.  The general denies all knowledge of the shabbily dressed victim, but Pitt does not believe him.  In the dead man’s pocket he finds a rare snuff box that up until recently graced the general’s study.  Pitt must tread carefully as it seems that many men, including his own police boss, are deeply involved in a complex web of blackmail, and further deaths may follow...

For Pitt, the sight of a dead man riding the morning tide of the Thames is unforgettable.  He lies in a battered punt drifting through the morning mist, his arms and legs chained to the sides of the boat, flowers strewn over his body.  Pitt’s search for the victim’s identity leads him into London’s bohemia to the theatre where beautiful Cecily Antrim is outraging society with her bold portrayal of modern woman, and into the studios where masters of light and shadow are experimenting with the fascinating new art of photography.