It's 1902. London is looking forward to the new King's coronation and ignoring the threat of war from across the sea... Penelope Tredwell, the pen behind bestselling author, Montgomery Flinch, is cursed with writer's block. She needs a sensational new story of her magazine, The Penny Dreadful, will go under.
So when a mysterious letter arrives, confessing to an impossible crime, Penny thinks she has found a plot to enthrall her readers: the theft of the Crown Jewels by the diabolical Black Crow. Ghostly apparitions, kidnap and treason - this is the stuff of great stories. But what if it's all true?