At the outset of the 20th century, Denton—a Civil War veteran and former Western lawman—moves to London to reinvent himself as a writer. Denton has a passion for justice and for women in distress, and in this series, both get him into plenty of tight scrapes as he tries to help those in need.

England in the chilly winter of 1902 has gone crazy for mediums and psychics. An American Yankee in King Edward's city, Denton has his doubts. Nevertheless, Denton agreed to write a book about ghosts, and has traveled to Italy to do it. Napoli may be bella, but it offers Denton only boredom and frustration, until a dead body shows up. As he tries to divine the killer's identity, the cold hard clues give him a new angle on his spiritualist friends.