England 1819: Thomas Shield, a new master at a school just outside London, is tu
tor to a young American boy and the child's sensitive best friend, Charles Frant
. Helplessly drawn to Frant's beautiful, unhappy mother, Thomas becomes entwined
in their family's affairs. When a brutal murder takes place in London's seedy b
ackstreets, it is not certain who either the victim or the killer is. But all cl
ues seem to lead back to the Frant household, and Shield is tangled in a web of
lies, money, sex and death that threatens to tear his new life apart. And what o
f the strange American boy at the heart of these macabre events - what is the da
rk secret of young Edgar Allan Poe?
