Elizabeth Hunter-Payne is an adventurous widow with time on her hands — a dangerous combination in Victorian London of 1859. Seeking excitement in a time of radical change, Elizabeth starts her own Investigation Bureau.

Armed with an inquisitive eye for detail, the capacity and boldness to ask obvious, if blunt, questions, and most importantly of all, her ability to keep her mouth shut, Elizabeth is quickly immersed in a case of kidnapping, smuggling, murder, and general mayhem. With guns blazing, steam-cars steaming, and clockwork automatons of a salacious nature going clickety-clack, can she save the son of a violent industrialist? Can she recover the priceless Turquoise Spider from the vicious clutches of underworld thugs behind one of Victorian London's infamous Houses of Introductions?

The survival of the Empire may well depend on the fortitude, brazenness and deductive powers of the irrepressible Elizabeth Hunter-Payne.