<p><b><i>Newspaper reporter Alec Lonsdale discovers that a series of seemingly random murders may be connected in this absorbing historical mystery.</i></b><br><i><br>London, 1882.</i> Alec Lonsdale, a young reporter on the <i>Pall Mall Gazette, </i>is working on a story about a fatal house fire. But the post-mortem on the victim produces shocking results: Patrick Donovan''s death was no accident. But why would someone murder a humble shop assistant and steal part of his brain?<br><br>When a second body is discovered, its throat cut, and then a third, Lonsdale and his spirited female colleague, Hulda Friederichs, begin to uncover evidence of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest echelons of Victorian society.</p>