Sally Lockhart is 25, and somebody wants to destroy her. She receives divorce papers from a man she has never met, let alone married — yet this trap is so well laid that she is powerless to prove otherwise. When custody of her precious daughter is awarded to his evil stranger, it is the beginning of a terrifying struggle in which Sally will have to fight, and kill if necessary, for the freedom of her family. Philip Pullman's ever-popular, action-packed Victorian melodramas are rejacketed for the bicentenary of Charles Dickens in 2012.