In 1858 in Edinburgh Scotland, a 23-year-old woman named Kate Grainger inherits her father's undertaking business. It is a time when not much is expected of women, other than to be wives and mothers, and Kate wants to be neither. She wants to be a doctor but women are not allowed to enter the prestigious Edinburgh School of Medicine. She has a male friend, James, who is a doctor - he is smitten with her and wants to marry her, but she has made it clear that she has no such intentions. She spends a lot of time with him looking through his medical books to learn all that she can. She has drive and ambition - and a special gift. Kate can communicate with people who have passed over. She had, what her father thought, was an imaginary friend when she was a child, but her companion was the spirit of a little girl who had died in the Great Fire of Edinburgh. When Kate discovers that her first client at Grainger Undertakers has been murdered, she sets out on a journey that takes her deep into Edinburgh's underground and into the spirit world to catch a serial killer.