A body is found just blocks from attorney Sarah Woolson's peaceful Rincon Hill home. Sarah is soon on the case, but nineteenth-century San Francisco is rapidly thrown into a state of panic as a gruesome crime spree begins to take hold of the city. Engaged in a life or death struggle to find the murderer, Sarah becomes embroiled in the erotic escapades of the town's infamous high-end brothels, a proper Anglican church, Darwin's shocking theory of evolution, and a vicious killer who will stop at nothing to achieve a scandalous objective.