The Butcher's Daughter

Famed for being the baker who stuffed her pies with the flesh of Sweeney Todds victims, the notorious Mrs Lovett has long been in the diabolical shadow of Fleet Streets murderous barber. But what could lead a woman who began life as a hard-working butchers daughter to such distasteful crimes? When young Margaret Evanss skill with the knife and saw brings her to the attention of a well-to-do doctor in early Victorian London, she is whisked from the offal-streaked streets of Whitechapel and installed in his Highgate home as a maid and sometime medical assistant. And thus begins a hellish journey straight out of the penny dreadfuls of the day one in which Margaret must employ all her wit and resourcefulness to avoid the clutches of crazed anatomists, sinister child-snatchers and the seemingly all-seeing gentlemen freemasons who seek to take away her liberty. Nobody can keep an East End butchers daughter down though. When, by nefarious means, she takes ownership of a little Fleet Street pie shop, and discovers the sinister barber who plies his trade upstairs takes the name of his cutthroat razor a little too literally, Margaret finds a way to turn the situation to her advantage. But with so many of the gentlemen whove come to Todds parlour in search of a shave disappearing without trace, how long can she keep herself from suffering the same deadly fate?