The song. That’s what apprentice wizard and London Metropolitan Police Constable Peter Grant first notices when summoned to the local morgue to view the corpse of Cyrus Wilkinson, part-time jazz drummer and full-time accountant, who dropped dead of a heart attack while playing a gig at Soho’s 606 Club. He, along with Scottish pathologist Dr. Abdul Haqq Walid, hears the distinct notes of an old jazz standard emanating from the body—a sure sign that something about the man’s death was not as normal as it might first have seemed, since only something supernatural leaves such an imprint. Body and Soul. They’re also what Peter will risk, as he investigates a pattern of similar deaths in and around Soho. With the help of his superior officer, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, the last practicing Newtonian wizard in England, and the questionable assistance of voluptuous but old-fashioned jazz groupie Simone Fitzwilliam, Peter will uncover a deadly magical menace—one that leads right to his own doorstep, with an unexpected connection to the squandered promise of a young jazz musician: a talented trumpet player named Richard "Lord" Grant—otherwise known as Peter’s dear old dad.