The Infidel Stain

Offering an evocative portrait of Victorian London during the formation of the police force and the infancy of the printing industry, Carter's novel opens several years after the events depicted in Edgar Award-nominated The Strangler Vine, which took place in Calcutta. Capt. William Avery has returned from India and is settled into domestic not-quite-bliss with his pregnant wife in the Devon countryside. When he receives a summons from the erstwhile Jeremiah Blake, who is investigating a pair of murders at the instigation of Lord Allingham (a philanthropist firmly entrenched in the social status quo), Avery is somewhat guiltily delighted to be reunited with Blake (his admiration for the latter carries shades of a bemused Dr. Watson). The two take a tour of the underbelly of 1840s London, investigating the seedy demimonde of pornography publishing, blackmail, and the rise of the Chartist movement.