London, mid-19th century. A gentlewoman's carriage is waylaid on the road to the city, her jewels stolen by a masked highwayman, her composure shattered. This violent interruption propels Lady Hatfield and her companion Miss Mordaunt into the teeming underbelly of Victorian London, where Bow Street runners hunt criminals through fog-shrouded alleys and gaslit gin palaces. Meanwhile, the dashing Tom Rain moves through darker waters still, shadowed by the ominous Old Death in a parallel world of criminal intrigue and desperate deals. George W. M. Reynolds weaves multiple fates together in this sensation novel, where love blooms dangerously across class lines, where poverty drives men to highway robbery, and where the elegant salons of the wealthy exist mere streets away from rookeries teeming with vice. The city itself becomes a character: a vast, stratified organism where justice is tenuous and survival demands cunning. These interlocking narratives of aristocracy and criminality, of threatened women and ruthless men, capture the anxieties and entertainments of Victorian England's massive reading public.
