Cutting-edge Victorian science meets cunningly plotted mystery in this "stylish period thriller" (The Globe and Mail). In the 1890s, Detective William Murdoch adopts modern techniques like "finger marks" and forensics to track Toronto's most sinister killers. Though derided by his skeptical boss, Murdoch finds friends and allies in a lovely pathologist and an eager-to-learn constable. Along the way they cross paths with some of the era's most famous figures, including Nikola Tesla, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Prince Alfred.
While demonstrating a newfangled alternating current to the public, Miss Toronto Electric & Light dies onstage. A tragic accident or murder? Detective William Murdoch enlists the help of Nikola Tesla to find out.
A trunk delivered to Inspector Brackenreid contains a lawyer's naked corpse and a taunting note. When a second trunk turns up, Murdoch races to find the killer before his boss becomes the next victim.
After celebrating a big win, boxer Amos Robinson goes down for the count, courtesy of a gunshot to the chest. A witness finds Robinson's wife, Fannie, standing over the body but Murdoch aims to prove her innocence.
Murdoch accompanies his hero to a séance, where the medium guides him to the body of a skeptical psychic investigator. Did the clues indeed come from the spirit world? Or did the medium have a motive for murder?
When Wendell Merrick dies from a blow to the head before his wedding, the case looks like a simple robbery gone wrong. But questions about the groom's ways lead Murdoch into Toronto's homosexual subculture.
A murder brings Murdoch face to face with his troubled past, as the detective's estranged father turns up drunk near the crime scene. Losing his usual objectivity, Murdoch seems dead set on proving his father's guilt.
When a corpse crashes through a theatre's ceiling and lands onstage in the midst of Macbeth, Murdoch and Brackenreid delve into the backstage intrigues of the city's leading Shakespearean acting troupe.
Boys playing on the lakeshore discover the bruised, beaten body of Richard Hartley - scion of a wealthy family. Investigating the case, Murdoch finds dark secrets beneath a gleaming world of privilege.
While researching a new novel, Arthur Conan Doyle returns to Toronto and meddles in a case involving a mad ventriloquist who seems to have murdered his father. Murdoch begins to suspect a hidden agenda.
Who could have murdered Howard Rookwood? Everyone admired the well-known philanthropist, killed in his glue factory. When suspicions fall on employees, Murdoch uncovers another side to the victim's character.