When Ludlow Fitch's parents cruelly betray him, he steals away on the back of a carriage and leaves behind the stinking City. He arrives in the dead of night at a remote village, where he crosses paths with the tall and limping figure of Joe Zabbidou - a pawnbroker with a difference. For Joe trades secrets, not goods, for cash. Employed as Joe's assistant, Ludlow records the villagers' fiendish confessions in an ancient leather-bound volume: "The Black Book of Secrets". There's the gravedigger who has been resurrecting bodies; the butcher who made a mouse-meat pie for his bullying father, with fatal consequences; the wizened bookseller who went to murderous lengths to get her hands on a priceless tome. Ludlow longs to trust his mysterious master, but he senses Joe has much to hide. But then Ludlow Fitch has his own, very dark, secrets
The Silver Apple Killer preys on the people of Urbs Umida, a rotten and wretched city. Two things connect the victims they all had a small silver apple in their pocket, and they had all recently visited a notorious inn to see one of two acts: the hideous Gluttonous Beast and the astonishing Bone Magician ...Since his father disappeared under a dark cloud of scandal, Pin Carpue has been alone in the world. His work for the local undertaker keeps him busy, but his life is bleak. Then Pin encounters the Bone Magician, a man who can raise corpses and make the dead speak. As Pin is drawn into an intoxicating world of mystery and intrigue, he becomes suspicious of Juno, the Bone Magician's young assistant. A strange darkness haunts her just as the Silver Apple Killer stalks the streets at night and as Pin pieces together the secrets of Bone Magic, his own life becomes fraught with grave danger
When his butterfly-collector father is swindled to within an inch of his life, a vengeful Hector leaves the city of Urbs Umida in pursuit of a fiendish villain with a glass eye. The trail leads to Withypitts Hall, a forbidding Gothic mansion as warped as its inhabitants and their secret schemes. Soon Hector finds himself embroiled in mysterious deeds more poisonous than his worst imaginings, but every twist and turn brings him closer to his revenge ...The third dark and diabolical book from a devilishly talented author.
