When the distinguished Mr. Justice Stafford dies of opium poisoning, his
shocking demise resurrects one of the most sensational cases ever to
inflame England: the murder five years before of Kingsley Blaine, whose
body was found crucified in Farriers' Lane. Amid the public hysteria for
revenge, the police had arrested a Jewish actor who was soon condemned
to hang. Police Inspector Thomas Pitt, investigating Stafford's death,
is drawn into the Farriers' Lane murder as well, for it appears that
Stafford may have been about to reopen the case. Pitt receives curiously
little help from his colleagues on the force, but his wife, Charlotte,
gleans from her social engagements startling insights into both cases.
And slowly both Thomas and Charlotte begin to reach for the same
sinister and deeply dangerous truth.