Jack the Ripper may be fading into memory but East London has found no peace.
H Division's beat is more chaotic and lawless than ever. So when a sergeant from Limehouse's neighboring K Division is found hurled from a Whitechapel tenement window, Reid is quick to act.
If the police are to be so publicly assaulted on his streets, what hope is there for law-abiding civilian life? Investigations into the man's activities lead them to the Chinatown at Limehouse dockside and into the orbit of K-Division's Inspector Jedediah Shine.
Shine's conviction is that his sergeant has fallen victim to a Triad turf war, but Jackson discovers evidence of a newly synthesized and devastatingly powerful opiate. This leads Reid to different conclusions and fears that a new kind of hell is to be released on to his streets.