London, 1852: the world's capital city of crime; a city where murder and hangings are public entertainment, where reporters and balladeers vie with one another to be first to the next grisly, exclusive revelation.
Of the panoply of killers awaiting execution, none is more celebrated than William Ryan, also known as Chokee Bill, whose stranglings have set the capital abuzz. One of the balladeers, Henry Owler, has contacted Ryan in prison in order to extract a True Confession from the killer. The pamphlet could make Owler's fortune. But there is one problem: Ryan claims he is innocent, that similar murders are still occurring, that the real Fiend is still on the loose.
Owler enlists the help of one of London's leading investigative journalists, Edmund Whitty of the Falcon. Owler has a unique knowledge of London's underbelly, its slums, brothels and gangs; the other has the ear of the public and keen nose for a story. Can they save the life of Chokee Bill? And can they discover the real murderer before he strikes again?
But fate has some other twists in store. The killer is closer than they can ever expect, close enough to touch in the fog bound streets. Is he a wraith of the imagination? Or is he the nightmare the public have dreamed and now made all too real? Is he The Fiend in Human Form?
