Lord Geoffrey Thraxton is notorious in Victorian society-a Byronesque rakehell with a reputation as the "wickedest man in London." After surviving a pistol duel, Thraxton boasts his contempt for death and insults the attending physician. It is a mistake he will regret, for Silas Garrette is a deranged sociopath and chloroform-addict whose mind was broken on the battlefields of Crimea. Oblivious to the danger, Thraxton's pursuit of idle pleasure leads him through the fog shrouded streets of London-from champagne soirees in the mummy room of the British Museum, to its high-class brothels and low-class opium dens. But when Thraxton falls in love with a mysterious woman who haunts Highgate Cemetery by night, he unwittingly provides the murderous doctor with the perfect means to punish a man with no fear of death.