It's the first year of the 20th century, and Denton, the notorious American writer, has returned to London after several months in one of the less-delightful corners of the Continent. He's greeted by a towering pile of mail -bills, invitations, gushing notes from fans craving more tales of adventuring. It's the usual mix...with one exception: "I believe that someone threatens to harm me, and I do not know quite what to do." The note, signed "Mary Thomason" was in fact been sent by someone else. And it is more than two months old. But Denton is a Victorian gentlemen to the marrow, much though he'd like to deny it, and he cannot deny a damsel in distress. His search for the mysterious Miss Thomason will take him deep into London's "bohemian" quarters -- no less alluring, pretentious and sinister than they are today - and also into some of the darker corners of his own soul.