Man's Illegal Life

London in the 18th century is one of the most dangerous cities in the world, a status helped along by the lack of any organized police force. Peacekeeping falls on the shoulders of parish watchmen like George Man, who stumbles on the emaciated corpse of a notorious miser, tied to a chair and left to starve to death in a boarded-up building. Just 50 years earlier, the Great Plague had devastated London, and its victims were similarly sealed in their homes to die. The Plague has recently been rumored to have re-emerged in France: Was the miser's murder a frantic attempt to stave off another epidemic? Or is a particularly devious criminal mind at work?