Spitalfields, 1840. Catherine Sorgeiul is nineteen and lives with her uncle in a rambling house in Londons East End. Sheltered and nervous, she has few companions and little to occupy the days beyond her own colourful imagination. But then a murderer strikes the city, ripping open the chests of young girls and stuffing hair into their mouths to resemble a beak, leading the press to christen him the Man of Crows. Catherine becomes obsessed with the grim crimes, and as she devours the news, she discovers she can channel the voices of the dead . . . and comes to believe she will eventually channel the Man of Crows himself.
