Jerry Gates is a receotionist at the Savoy Hotel. When one of her guests expires in the lobby, Jerry is drawn into a dark underside of London she never knew existed - a world of secret paintings, rising corpses, exploding commuters, mysterious guilds and mechanical murder devices.
Aiding decrepit detectives Bryant and May, Jerry meets an appalling London family steeped in generations of blackmail and finds herself against an ingenious, unstoppable evil that threatens the entire city. As the lights start going out all over London, Jerry remembers how scared she is of the dark...