December 1941
On a bright Sunday morning in Hawaii, Japanese planes swoop down and attack the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbour. America enters the war and Britain no longer stands alone against Hitler.
Conditions on the home front remain bleak. In a city pulverised by the Blitz, with rampant crime and corruption and stretched police resources, life for Scotland Yard detective Frank Merlin continues as arduous as ever.
In the week of Japan's aggression, the shattered body of beautiful film star Laura Curzon is found on the pavement beneath her Mayfair apartment, an apparent suicide. A mile away, the body of a strangled young girl is discovered in the rubble of a bombed-out building.
Merlin and his team investigate, encountering fraudulent film moguls, philandering movie stars, depraved Satanists and brutal gangsters as they battle through a wintry London in pursuit of the truth.