It is the time of Jack the Ripper, the widowed Queen Victoria sits on the throne of England. The whole of London is on edge wondering when or where Jack will kill next. The Palace, Parliament, and the press are demanding the police do more to find him. In another part of London, rough-around-the-edges war hero, Metropolitan Detective Inspector Rudyard Bloodstone has his own serial killer to find. Inter departmental rivalries, politics, and little evidence to go on hamper the investigation at every turn. In a battle of wills, Bloodstone presses forward following his instincts in spite of the obstacles. Adding to those problems, away from the strains of the investigation, he is engaged in the ups and downs of a new relationship with a lovely hat maker.

The summer of 1889 was proving to be a strange one for Detective Inspector Rudyard Bloodstone and his partner. They had a sexual pervert loose. The man didn’t actually harm women but threatened them at knife point, fondling them, and ultimately stealing their stockings. Far more serious were the murders of influential men, which appeared random other than they were all killed by arsenic poison. Never had he and his partner had cases with so little workable evidence. Also, the rivalry between him and his detective nemesis at London’s other police department was intensifying. That nemesis was the boxing champion of their department and looking to challenge Rudyard, who never trained as a boxer. Besides Rudyard’s pride being at stake, and the pride of his station, his nemesis also had in his possession a scandalous photograph of the woman Rudyard cares very much for. The new lady in Rudyard’s life had captured his heart and he’d fight the devil himself to save her reputation.

London Christmas, 1889 The widowed Queen Victoria reigns over an empire on which the “sun never sets,” and London is bright with holiday decorations. Detective Rudyard Bloodstone’s career is moving along well as Holborn Station’s lead investigator. And, his year had gotten even better when he met London’s celebrated music hall star, Honeysuckle Flowers. As he and his lady embark on celebrating the holidays, Rudyard grows homesick for Wales and his family there. He makes plans to see his parents and thinks it is the perfect time to introduce Honeysuckle to them. To his unhappy surprise, his mother paints her with a trollop’s brush. His mother is firm: he is loved and missed and most welcome in the family home but not his lady. He must choose between them and to choose means the risk of losing the other.

A veteran, Detective Rudyard Bloodstone has fought a brutal battle and witnessed war horrors that haunt his nightmares. Now one of those horrors has followed him home from Africa. A vicious predator, the Cape cobra, can kill a man in thirty minutes. A suspect using the snake as a weapon in robberies is terrorizing London. When the crimes escalate into murder, a victim’s daughter, Honoria Underhill, becomes the focus of the killer. After several attempts on her life, Scotland Yard threatens to take over the high profile case. With few leads to follow, Bloodstone and his partner must now fight department politics and catch the killer before Underhill becomes another murder victim.