London, 1890, and Superintendent Thomas Pitt is investigating the most horrific killings since the Whitechapel Murders A headless body is found in a boat on the Serpentine, then another is discovered propped up in a nearby bandstand Is there a madman on the rampage? For once, Charlotte Pitt is too preoccupied to help her husband Domestic life has never been so busy Her brother-in-law is standing for Parliament, her mother is unsuitably fond of an young actor and, most important, the Pitts are to move house Yet in the panic of packing fittings and furniture, it is Charlotte who happens upon a startling solution