An international shipping magnate arrives in town, with a retinue of Pinkerton Agency bodyguards, to complete the acquisition of an ailing London shipping line. Meanwhile, the murdered body of a brilliant engineer draws Reid's attention just as Jackson and Susan's forgotten past returns to claim them.
Reid is adrift, his team in pieces and Leman Street shaken to its foundations following recent events. A kidnapping offers him cause to assemble his men and tackle the white slavery ring operating in their midst. But Reid is gripped by a growing obsession that this leads back to the terrible secret from his own past.
Jack the Ripper may be fading into memory, but east London has found no peace. An investigation into the assault of a policeman leads DI Reid and the men of H-Division to the newly-emergent Chinatown, where Jackson discovers evidence of a new and devastatingly powerful opiate. Reid fears a new kind of hell is to be released onto his streets.
A young woman is found murdered at the London Hospital and the only clue to her identity is an unusual deformity. The hunt for her killer takes Reid and the team into the shadowy netherworld of the freakshows, where they must seek the help of Joseph Merrick, aka the Elephant Man. Reinforcements for H-Division arrive in the form of DC Albert Flight.
The abduction of a prominent member of the London County Council introduces Reid to Councilor Jane Cobden, the first woman appointed to the LCC - because it appears the kidnappers are radical supporters of Cobden's aims. Long Susan is taken by force to the gang's hideout, and she soon finds herself growing sympathetic to her captors' lives and aims.
An Irish bomber is sprung from prison and barely a day later a prominent opponent of the Home Rule movement is murdered. Chief Inspector Abberline is convinced that the Irish Republican Brotherhood is active once more and orders Reid to send the Irish DC Flight undercover into Whitechapel's Irish community.
Investigations into the brutal slaying of a telegraph boy lift the lid on a vice racket run from the offices of the GPO. The case leads Reid to the heart of the one of the city's most august financial institutions. Captain Jackson seeks ever more perilous means of ridding he and Long Susan of the suffocating debt they owe Silas Duggan.
Churches and synagogues are being burnt and desecrated in Whitechapel and Reid suspects the same hand behind the various attacks. Meanwhile, the all-too-brief domestic happiness that Sergeant Drake has enjoyed is disrupted by the arrival of a friend from his wife Bella's past, the mysterious and charismatic scholar, Gabriel Cain.
A valuable symbol of the British Empire’s wealth shows up in the form of an uncut diamond. It is a jewel ‘freed’ from the diamond monopoly of De Graal by one Daniel Judge, Captain Jackson’s untrustworthy older brother. Reid and Flight find themselves being drawn to the plight of a local craftsman defrauded of his work and income by a scam that is set to return H Division to the malign influence of Detective Inspector Jedediah Shine.
A destructive gang of youths unleash hell upon the streets, but it's not until daylight breaks that the true horror of their brutal work is revealed. The trail leads the team of H Division into the heartland of one of the city's oldest trades - the London Breweries - where conflicted loyalties reign, and grief and anger create a potent concoction.