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.