The gamut of Victorian society, though, is also a hotbed for crime and crooks of all kinds. With the country a-flutter in the run-up to this national occasion, events reach fever pitch when a disembodied head is discovered on a passenger train at Crewe; the first in a murky course of events that takes in murder, fraud and race-fixing.

Detective Robert Colbeck and his assistant are assigned to the case and are soon snarled up in a web of skulduggery stretching across the country. Soon, however, they are forced to ask themselves: just what is someone prepared to do in order to win?