Bella Wallis discovers her plots in the alleyways, drawing rooms and dirty laundry of Victorian London. Under the pen name Henry Ellis Margam she takes revenge upon the scoundrels that litter London Society by destroying them - in print.

So when Bella discovers a crested cigar case at the scene of a murdered prostitute she and her friends are determined to solve the mystery and to avenge the wretched girl's death. But the owner of the coat of arms is a dangerous and powerful man, and the world he inhabits far murkier than Bella could ever have imagined. With cruelty and violence threatening to engulf her, she plots one last attempt to expose and denounce the murderer. Will Bella survive the gruesome reality of the world her characters inhabit? In body, certainly, but her conscience may never be the same again...