Summary

An encounter with an anti-gravity machine catapults Peter Schock and Kate Dyer back to the 18th century and sets in motion a calamitous chain of events. While a massive police hunt gets underway to find the missing children in the 21st century — in 1763 a hardened criminal, the Tar Man, steals the anti-gravity machine and disappears into the London underworld.

Stranded in another time and forced to chase the Tar Man to his lair, Peter and Kate find a friend and guide in reformed cutpurse, Gideon Seymour. Gideon does everything he can to help them, but will his dark past catch up with him before the machine is recovered?