December 1940. New Year's Eve draws closer, but crowds will not be gathering on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral to celebrate. After a quiet Christmas, the whole area has just suffered London's most devastating air raid since the start of the Blitz and waves of incendiary bombs have burnt the heart of British book publishing to the ground. Detective Inspector John Jago finds a desolate woman sitting among the ruins of her family business and must break the news - her husband's been found shot dead at their home in Soho. An antiquarian bookseller, he'd just acquired a mysterious volume which is priceless - and missing. Did someone covet it enough to kill for it? Obsessive collectors and unscrupulous dealers haunt Jago's descent into Soho's underworld, where he finds criminals are branching out in the shadows of the blackout.