London, April 1891. When the torso of a woman washes up on the bank of the river Thames, investigator Sarah Bain Barrett and her husband, Detective Sergeant Thomas Barrett, can't agree on what direction their inquiries should take. In this seventh case (after Garden of Sins, Sarah's enemy, Inspector Reid, thinks it could be the work of the Ripper—a notion that could steer the police investigation disastrously off course and even tear apart Sarah's close-knit band of comrades.