A Broken Vessel

JULIAN KESTREL STALKS A DIABOLICAL KILLER THROUGH HIGH AND LOW LIFE IN REGENCY LONDON

London's notorious Haymarket district, Sally Stokes, a bold and bewitching Cockney prostitute, picks up three men one after the other and nicknames them Bristles, Blue Eyes, and Blinkers. From each of them Sally steals a handkerchief--and from one she mistakenly steals a letter that contains an urgent plea for help from a distraught young woman.

Luckily, Sally's brother is none other than Dipper, reformed pickpocket and valet to gifted amateur sleuth Julian Kestrel. After the writer of the letter is found dead, the authorities dismiss her death as suicide. But to Kestrel it looks like murder, and he forms an unlikely--but highly entertaining--alliance with Sally to track down the three clients. The two embark on a quest that leads them from a house of reclamation for fallen women to the abodes of England's highest-ranking families as they race to unmask a dangerous killer.