This novel reveals the dark, beating heart of 19th-century London, where corruption and desperate desires lurked under a serene surface. Catherine Sorgeiul is 19 and lives with her uncle in a rambling house in London's East End. She has little to occupy the days beyond her own colourful imagination. But then a murderer strikes the city, ripping open the chests of young girls and stuffing hair into their mouths to resemble a beak, leading the press to christen him the Man of Crows. Catherine becomes obsessed with the grim crimes.