Feb 1816: A race through the icy, twisting cobblestone streets of London ends in a discontinued church-and a horrific discovery. Bow Road Runner Sam Kelly is named to investigate the grisly murder of Sir Giles Holbrooke, who was left nude and garroted, along with his tongue cut out. Yet as perplexing simply because that crime is usually, it becomes also stranger when symbols that resemble crosses mysteriously start to appear across the useless man’s flesh during autopsy. Could it be a message from the killer?

Sam converts to the one person in the kingdom who he believes may answer that question and solve the bizarre murder-the Duke of Aldridge’s odd but brilliant ward, Kendra Donovan.

While Kendra continues to be trying to adapt to her new lease of life in the early nineteenth century, she is eager to use her abilities being a twenty-first hundred years FBI agent again. And she’ll require all her investigative prowess, because Sir Giles was not an average citizen. He was among England’s most clever spymasters, whose existence had been filled with intrigue and subterfuge.