NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLERIn Victorian England, a divisive election is fast approaching. Passions are so enflamed that Thomas Pitt, shrewd mainstay of the London police, has been ordered not to solve a crime but to prevent a national disaster. The aristocratic Tory candidateand Pitt's archenemyis Charles Voisey. The Liberal candidate is Aubrey Serracold, whose wife's dalliance with spiritualism threatens his chances. Indeed, she is one of the participants in a late-night seance that becomes the swan song of a stylish clairvoyant who is found brutally murdered the next morning in her house on Southampton Row. Meanwhile, Pitt's wife, Charlotte, and their children are enjoying a country vacationunaware that they, too, are deeply endangered by the same fanatical forces hovering over the steadfast Pitt.