Perry, Anne

Grandmama Ellison--left with distant relatives when her daughter and son-in-law go to Paris for Christmas--decides to be disagreeable until her interest is captured when uninvited guest Maude Barrington is found dead in bed and she becomes caught up in investigating her mysterious demise.

Inspector Monk investigates the disappearance of a well-to-do citizen of Victorian London, and the primary suspect is the man's depraved twin brother.

The powerful inner circle - a secret society of men sworn to support each other above all other loyalties - is committed to seizing one critical seat in Parliament, a first step towards the achievement of sinister secret ambitions. Passions are so enflamed that Thomas Pitt, shrewd mainstay of the London police, has been ordered to forego his long-awaited vacation, not to solve a crime, but to prevent a national disaster.

Murders just didn't happen in fashionable areas like Callander Square - but these two had. The police were totally baffled. But Pretty young Charlotte Ellison Pitt was curious.

Deep in London's filthy, dangerous slums, Victorians transacted their most secret and shameful business. For a price, a man could procure whatever he wanted, but it happened now and then that the price he paid was his life.

When the parents of Zillah Lambert sue architect Killian Melville for breach of contract for refusing to marry their daughter and attorney Sir Oliver Rathbone cannot elicit information from his client Mr. Melville, investigator William Monk is sent into the streets of Victorian London to search for clues.