Cornelius Armstrong is a Detective Inspector in Edwardian Carlisle. In the first of these two adventures, Armstrong investigates the brutal murder of a young Italian immigrant on the corner of West Walls and Dean Tait's Lane in November 1903. In doing so, Cornelius uncovers a far wider web of underworld crime. In the second case, the reciting of ghost stories in front of a blazing fire at an innocent Christmas party, inadvertently leads the detective into a trail of betrayal and deceit that dates back some six hundred years to the death of King Edward I on Burgh Marsh.