Commander Thomas Pitt, head of Special Branch, is called to the scene of a brutal explosion in the heart of London. The bomb was set off during an important, and secret, police raid, killing several officers, and the government suspects anarchists are at work. But what Pitt discovers is far more disturbing: the explosion was not a terrorist attack meant to sow chaos, but a calculated means to commit a targeted murder. And the evidence trail leads him straight to a deadly crime that is set not in the back alleys of London, but in the drawing rooms of London's elite.
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