Daniel Pitt's investigation into his colleague's murder leads him through London's teeming underbelly to one of the Royal Navy's most powerful shipbuilders in a thrilling novel from New York Times best-selling author Anne Perry.

When junior barrister Daniel Pitt is summoned to the scene of a murder in the slum area known as Mile End, he knows only that the victim is a senior barrister from his firm. To Daniel's relief, it is not his close friend Toby Kitteridge, but the question remains: What was this respected colleague doing in Mile End? The firm's head, Marcus fford Croft, may know more than he admits, but fford Croft's memory is not what it used to be. And so Daniel and Kitteridge must investigate on their own, lest the police uncover something they should not.

As the pair digs into Mile End, they are led to a local brothel and an opium den, but also - unexpectedly - to a wealthy shipbuilder crucial to Britain's effort to build up its fleet, which soon may face the fearsome naval might of Germany. Daniel finds his path blocked by powerful officials, his investigation so unwelcome that even his father, Thomas Pitt, receives a chilling warning. Suddenly, not just Daniel but his entire family - including his beloved mother, Charlotte - is in danger. Will devotion to justice be the undoing of the Pitt family and endanger Britain's defense at sea? As ever, the fate of family and history are inextricably intertwined in this spellbinder from Anne Perry.