With a serial killer loose on Carnival Row, and a government that turns a blind eye to the deaths of its lower class citizens, Rycroft Philostrate, a war-hardened investigator, is the only person willing to stop the murders and maintain the fragile peace. But when Vignette Stonemoss, a faerie refugee, turns up in the Burgue, she forces Philo to reckon with a past he's tried to forget.

Love. Murder. Conspiracy. Revolution. When mysterious killings inflame tensions between the Faefolk and their Human oppressors, each denizen of Carnival Row must choose who they are and how to act.