Famed childrens book author Winifred Rudge travels to London to research a ghost story about a woman who is being haunted by Jack the Ripper. Upon her arrival she finds that her stepcousin John Comestor has mysteriously disappeared, and a ghostly presence has taken over his apartment in the 19th-century rowhouse once owned by Winnies great-great-grandfather. Is it the ghost of the grandfather, who family legend claims was Charles Dickenss childhood inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge? The ghost of Jack the Ripper? Or a spirit from a more ancient age? Winnie finds herself the unwilling audience for a drama of spectres and shades, some from her familys dim history and some from her own unremembered past.
