Detective Inspector Nigella Parker of London's City Police has both a deeply rooted fear of fire and a talent for solving arson cases. When a charred body is found beside Christopher Wren's towering Monument to the Great Fire, Nigella is reluctantly pitted against a murderous artist. With her former lover Colm O'Leary of Scotland Yard, she finds links to the coldest of cold cases: a bookseller gone missing in 1666 during the Great Fire. In this clever parallel mystery, we see two investigators of that time also tracking his disappearance—but can their sleuthing from 350 years ago help Nigella catch this diabolical modern-day killer?