1854. Ben Canaan is a troublesome 21-year-old getting up to mischief in the East End with his band of fellow Good-for-Nothings. But when a shocking discovery turns Ben's life upside-down, he journeys halfway across the world to Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, on the eve of the Crimean War. Ben is pulled into the hunt for a seemingly unstoppable serial killer. In the process, he uncovers a deadly conspiracy that threatens to change not just his life, but the course of history itself.