Disgraced and demoted Commandant Farbell Gifford, terror of the middle Yangtse, is sent back home to take over the run down Bristol branch of the Excise and Detection Service. A murder on his first day quickly reveals the limitations of his subordinates and faces him with the triple challenge of finding the culprit, reforming the department and, more urgently, buying a new boat. Set in a sort of 19th Century Bristol and Bath, the gothic world that Commandant Gifford inhabits is characterised by sentient clockwork, urchins, Girls' Schools, bad weather, bombs, airships, Abolitionists, Marshwiggles, concubines, painters, prostitutes, dancing bruises, slaves (Cornish and African), Faustian pacts, Tavern Brawlers, boiled rats, fake Chinese, a lute of jade, opium, speciality teas, tigers and the most remarkable opera singer ever. 'Consider yourself under arrest. And about to be brutally tortured.'