The Limehouse Text

Victorian enquiry agent, Cyrus Barker and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn return in this latest novel from the author of the award-winning "To Kingdom Come". In "The Limehouse Text", Barker and Llewelyn discover a pawn ticket among the effects of Barker's late assistant, which leads them to London's Chinatown district, Limehouse, to retrieve an innocent looking book. Things are never what they seem there, however, and soon they learn the book is a rare and secret text stolen from a Chinese monastery, containing lethal martial arts techniques forbidden to the West. With the political situation between the British Empire and Imperial China already in peril, the duo must track down a killer intent upon gaining the secret knowledge while safeguarding the text from a snarl of dubious characters with crossed interests. Moving through a hidden world of opium dens, back-room blood sports, and sailor's penny hangs, while avoiding the wrath of the district's powerful warlord, Mr K'ing, Barker and Llewelyn take readers on a wild and dangerous tour through the mean streets of turn-of-the-century London.