On 7th November 1843 Harriet Monckton, 23 years old and a woman of respectable parentage and religious habits, was found murdered behind the chapel she had regularly attended in Bromley, Kent. The community was appalled by her death, apparently as a result of swallowing a fatal dose of prussic acid, and even more so when the autopsy revealed that Harriet was six months pregnant. Drawing on coroner's reports and witness testimonies, the novel unfolds from the viewpoints of each of the main characters, each of whom have a reason to want her dead. Based on a true story that shocked and fascinated the nation.