“When I search bodies and they tell me of violence done or illness borne, I will not shrug and pray. I will speak up for those who cannot.”

For almost 300 years, every church in the City of London employed a Searcher: a woman who examined every corpse in their parish and declared the cause of death.

 

1832.

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The City is overcrowded, dirty and riddled with crime and disease; the churchyards overflowing with more bodies than can be buried.

Kezia Peppercorn succeeds her mother Beth as the Searcher of St Faith’s, a small church in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. Despite the scorn of the new vicar, Mr Vivian, obstructive Constables and suspicious parishioners, Kezia does all she can to seek justice for the dead.

When Kezia’s friend Frances dies in suspicious circumstances, no one listens to her doubts. But when another woman meets the same fate, Kezia must use all her knowledge and ingenuity in a cat-and-mouse game to stop a ruthless killer.