December 1880, Whitechapel. Nine dead infants in flowerpots. A vanished mortician. And one lead: the prostitute who saw him last.

Coroner Sévère reads people's lies as easily as case notes. It's made him an effective investigator. And cynical. But when he questions Miss Mary, he encounters something unexpected: a woman whose lies he can't read and who might as well be the mortician's killer.

In a city where money masks the darkest secrets, Sévère must navigate between what's legal and what's necessary. Even if it means hiring the services of the very woman he's investigating.
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A gritty Victorian crime novel that explores the darkest corners of London's underworld. For readers of Lyndsay Faye's The Gods of Gotham, Caleb Carr's The Alienist, and Antonia Hodgson's The Devil in the Marshalsea.