The Masked Adversary

Two bodies are discovered on the same night in the same part of London: both shocking, both inexplicable - neither entirely human.

Police Commissioner Sir Richard Mayne's Detective Force is being mocked by the press on one side and investigated by Parliament on the other. His investigator Inspector Albert Newsome seems afflicted by a dangerous mania, so when two houses are apparently burned down by an incendiary, the commissioner sees an opportunity to again recruit the victims of the crime: ex-detective George Williamson and his shadowy friend Noah Dyson.

Together, they must collaborate in a case more gruesome and extraordinary than any of them has experienced. Further inhuman effigies appear, Scotland Yard itself is robbed, Mr Williamson is arrested for murder, and men walk the streets wearing the exact likenesses of others. Is the evil mind behind this chaos the same man being sought by Inspector Newsome? And is the villain's aim blackmail, revenge, anarchy . . . or merely terror?