There is a new broom at Scotland Yard: Nimrod Frost. His first "little job" for Inspector Sholto Lestrade is to investigate the reported appearance of a lion in Cornwall, a supposed savager of sheep and frightener of men. Hardly a task for an Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department. Having solved that case to his own satisfaction, Lestrade returns to London and to another suspicious death and then another. All old men who should have died quietly in their sleep. Is there a connection? Is there a mass murderer at work? Lestrade clashes with his superiors and finds himself suspended from duty, but that is a mere technically to the doughty Lestrade. He moves from workhouse to royal palace, from backstage at the Lyceum to regimental dinner in his search for clues and enlightenment.