''Her arms were bare and milky-white, her hands dainty and graceful; her smile as sweet as any I have ever seen. An awful shame...''

In the disreputable dance-halls and ''houses of accommodation'' of 1870s London a boastful killer selects his prey.Are these random acts of malevolence or is there a connection between the terrible murders, a mysterious theft at the Abney Park Cemetery and a long-forgotten crime?Inspector Decimus Webb, newly promoted to the Detective Branch at Scotland Yard, must investigate, and quickly, to prevent another tragedy...

Taking readers through the dark alleys and gaslit parlours of nineteenth-century London, Lee Jackson''s second Inspector Webb novel is a suspense-filled gothic mystery with the Victorian celebration of death at its morbid heart.