Knee deep in murder, in his forty-third year. Sholto Lestrade wouldn't have it any other way.

The first victim in a series of bizarre killings is a Captain of the Life Guards, who is found in the Thames at Shadwell Stair, with a war medal wedged between his teeth.

Lestrade's next summons is to the underground caves at Wookey Hole where the demise of an Egyptologist - a scarab clamped between his molars - prompts the question: can a man dead for thousands of years reach beyond the grave and commit murder?

The further death of a young subaltern on picquet duty (this time a locket is his dying mouthful) forces Lestrade to go undercover in the Yeomanry and become a barrack-room lawyer of incisive command.

As the body count rapidly rises, Lestrade combines a volatile lifestyle with dinner at Blenheim Palace, a near-fatal trip in an air balloon, a disastrous cycle tour, and a masterful mediation in East End gang warfare in the Ratcliffe Highway.