The gentleman tied to the lamppost on Westminster Bridge was elegantly attired—fresh boutonniere, silk hat, white evening scarf—and quite dead, due to his throat being cut. Before Inspector Thomas Pitt can even speculate on why anyone would kill Sir Lockwood Hamilton, a kind family man and conscientious Member of Parliament, another colleague meets the same fate. Clever Charlotte Pitt can't resist helping her hard-pressed husband, in their 10th investigation in Anne Perry's gas-lit Victorian mystery series. And all the while, the Westminster Bridge Cutthroat stalks another victim.

"Perry uses her well-mannered prose, satiric wit and sense of place and time to construct a completely believable and human world. A sterling performance."—Library Journal