A story of high intrigue and low politics, of brutal murder and cunning conspiracies, set against the backdrop of a fascinating period in British history and introducing an ingenious, pragmatic, and unforgettable hero. St. Giles, London, 1829—three people have been brutally murdered and the city simmers with anger and political unrest. Pyke, sometime Bow Street Runner, sometime crook, finds himself accidentally embroiled in the murder investigation but quickly realizes that he has stumbled into something more sinister and far-reaching. In his pursuit of the murderer Pyke ruffles the feathers of some powerful people and, falsely accused of murder himself, he soon faces a death sentence and the gallows of Old Bailey. Imprisoned and with only his uncle and the headstrong, aristocratic daughter of his greatest enemy who believe in him, Pyke must engineer his escape, find the real killer, and untangle the web of politics that has been spun around him.

The troubled head of the Detective Branch returns, in an intriguing case of kidnap, rebellion and murder. A body is discovered in a ditch outside the town of Dundrum in County Tipperary. The local land agent tells Knox, a young Irish policeman with divided loyalties, that it is the body of a vagrant and that the landowner Lord Cornwallis wants the case dealt with swiftly and quietly. The potato crop has failed for a second time and the Irish people are dying in their thousands. However when Knox examines the corpse it is clear that this man died wearing a Saville Row suit. Keeping his investigations secret, it becomes clear to Knox that the stranger came from London. Three months earlier Detective Inspector Pyke receives a letter from the daughter of a family friend. She has married a wealthy industrialist who owns ironworks in Merthyd Tydfil and her son has been kidnapped. Lured by the promise of a substantial fee and wanting to escape the tensions of Scotland Yard, Pyke agrees to go to Wales to investigate. There, he discovers a town riven with social discord following the brutal suppression of a workers strike and the importation of cheap Irish labour. The kidnapping is linked to a group of rebels but Pyke soon begins to suspect the case is not as clear cut as it seems. What are the links between the rebellion in Wales and the unrest in Ireland, and has Pyke finally bitten off more than he can chew?

It is 1834 and with the birth of the Industrial Revolution, railway fever sweeps the country. Pyke is uneasy with the luxury his aristocratic marriage has brought him, and when he is asked to unofficially investigate a decapitation in Cambridgeshire, he can not resist the chance to resuscitate the old skills he learned on the streets. But with the industrial world comes a new and faceless enemy—men who have money and power, and who will stop at nothing in their pursuit of both. For Pyke, with his young wife and child and an elevated place in society to protect, the stakes have suddenly become alarmingly high. From the sweat shops of the east end to the palace of the Queen-in-waiting; from the elegant drawing rooms of the newly rich, to the bloodspattered backrooms of London's taverns; Pyke's investigation stirs up a hornets' nest of trouble. As the death toll rises, his wife becomes involved with the radicals' fight against the industrialists, and an alluring woman from his past returns to threaten the life he has made for them both, Pyke must adapt to the ever-changing world around him and draw on all of his resources if he is to protect his family and survive.

In London of 1840, the economy is sliding into recession; gangs of unemployed workers roam the streets; and a murderer prowls the capital's poor neighborhoods. Pyke, still grieving over the death of his wife and struggling to shoulder his responsibilities as a father, is in debtors' prison, having lost his home and reached the edge of bankruptcy. Fitzroy Tilling, now head of the new Metropolitan Police Force gives Pyke his freedom, but in return he must agree to investigate the brutal death of a young biracial woman, who was apparently working as a prostitute. It is not long before another woman turns up dead, and Pyke begins to suspect that he has stumbled on something more sinister, and more far-reaching than the murder of a couple of prostitutes. Pyke's investigation takes him from the London docks to the sugar plantations of Jamaica, from a fading colonial mansion to the backstreets of the East End in a struggle against ambitious and ruthless enemies, as well as demons of his own.

Pyke joins the newly formed Detective Bureau of the Metropolitan police in this fourth gripping tale of corruption and murderin 19th century London London, 1844. Pyke has been part of the Metropolitan Police's newly formed "Detective Bureau" for six months. Unsurprisingly Pyke is confronted by faceless opponents within the Bureau and the New Police who don't like his unconventional methods, his criminal past, and his dubious law enforcement record. When the body of a policeman is found, it initially appears that the man has been killed while on duty in the course of a robbery that has gone wrong. But Pyke's investigations reveal that the policeman might have been murdered and the robbery offered as a ruse to cover up what really happened. Then a tavern landlord--and, as Pyke discovers, a former policeman--is killed and a connection to the dead policeman is unearthed: both joined the New Police at the same time and served under the same inspector in the East End. Digging into both men's past, Pyke's investigative team unearth evidence of corrupt practices and connections to slum-lords and high-ranking City of London officials--as well as a policeman who has subsequently climbed to the top of the New Police.