As Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror in London comes to an end, a new era of depravity sets the stage for the first gripping mystery featuring the detectives of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad. “If Charles Dickens isn’t somewhere clapping his hands for this one, Wilkie Collins surely is.”—The New York Times Book Review Victorian London—a violent cesspool of squalid sin. The twelve detectives of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad are expected to solve the thousands of crimes committed in the city each month. Formed after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure in capturing Jack the Ripper, they suffer the brunt of public contempt. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own... A Scotland Yard Inspector has been found stuffed in a black steamer trunk at Euston Square Station, his eyes and mouth sewn shut. When Walter Day, the squad’s new hire, is assigned to the case, he finds a strange ally in Dr. Bernard Kingsley, the Yard’s first forensic pathologist. Their grim conclusion: this was not just a random, bizarre murder but in all probability, the first of twelve. The squad itself it being targeted and the devious killer shows no signs of stopping. But Inspector Day has one more surprise, something even more shocking than the crimes: the murderer’s motive.

ヴィクトリア朝ロンドンの混沌を、グレイシアンは美しくも残酷な筆致で描きます。切り裂きジャックの影が消えぬ街で、科学捜査という新たな光を灯そうとする刑事たちの葛藤は、重厚なドラマを紡ぎます。都市の腐敗と人々の情念が、読者を霧深い路地へと引きずり込む圧倒的な没入感を生んでいます。 本作の真髄は、伝統と近代が衝突する過渡期の熱量にあります。刑事デイと病理学者キングズリーの絆は理知と情熱の調和を体現し、異様な手口に潜む動機を暴き出します。クラシックな趣と現代的なスリルが共鳴する、歴史犯罪小説の極致とも言える傑作です。