The mesmerist's apprentice

the long version

When Sarah Tanner re-opens her Dining and Coffee Rooms after a disastrous fire, the gossips of Leather Lane grudgingly admit she has 'the luck of the devil'. Yet when a local butcher is falsely accused of selling horse-meat, it seems her luck has run out. Drawn into a dangerous series of confrontations with a gang of youths who seem determined to put an innocent man out of business, Sarah's own livelihood looks set for ruin into the bargain. But what links the persecution of a humble butcher with a certain Dr Stead - a leading practitioner of the strange art of mesmerism? Sarah sets out upon a trail of suicide, murder, deception and deceit which stretches from the alleys of Leather Lane to the drawing-rooms of Mayfair. But the closer she gets to the truth, the more she seems to be putting herself in danger.