Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry

In the sixteenth murder mystery featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, their detective wits are stretched to the limit as a grotesque death sparks off an investigation into horrific hidden scandals.

It is barely two years since the prostitutes of London's East End were terrorised by Jack the Ripper. Now, in dismal Pentecost Alley, a killer is at work in the backstreets of Whitechapel once more. Not that the grisly murder of a mere whore is enough to merit the expertise of Superintendent Pitt of Bow Street. Society regards such women as less than human, deserving all they get. But beneath the mutilated body of the young girl there is a strange badge. The insignia proclaims it to be an emblem of the Hellfire Club, and on the back is engraved the name of Finlay FitzJames.

So begins Pitt's curious association with the wealthy and immensly influential FitzJames family: Augustus, the powerful bully of a father; bored, glamorous Tallulah; and foppish Finlay, born into privilege and happy to make use of it. Pitt cannot afford to make one false move. For what Victorian jury would take the word of a common prostitute against that of a FitzJames?