Welcome to Litsy!

A Foundation for Fallen Women. A chess automaton. An impossible theft. Reluctant inspector of vice, Lawless must take a fruitless reckoning of London's shadowy nether world. Hyposcrisy, double standards: just what we expect from stuffy Victorian society. But Lawless was not expecting the trail that his questions open up: from the erotic booksellers of Holywell Street down the darkening passageways of Haymarket bordellos to backstreet cast-offs of the high life. When reputations are at threat, those running the show can be merciless in defending them.