The Variety Palace Music Hall is in trouble, due in no small part to a gruesome spate of murders that unfolded around it a few months previously.

Between writing, managing the music hall and trying to dissuade her boss from installing a water tank in the building, Minnie Ward has her hands full. Her complicated relationship with detective Albert Easterbrook doesn't even bear thinking about.

But when a performer's brother mysteriously goes missing, Minnie and Albert are thrown together once more. Then another body is found dead in a trunk, and a strange connection starts to emerge.

The crimes will propel the unlikely duo into the shady world of illegal gambling, dog fighting and monkey kidnappings as they trace things back to a tragedy that took place 14 years ago - leaving 183 children dead. And given that the incident touched so many people's lives, everyone is a suspect ...