A corpse rises from the dead in the morgue at Guy's Hospital, and his missing pantaloons appear to be cursed as they roam the city, causing consternation and death wherever they go. What possible connection can this have to a gang of female jewel thieves and a pot of raspberry jam?
There's a new man in charge at Bow Street Magistrates' Court and all is not well. His ambition is to split up Lavender and Woods - and to add to Lavender's woes, someone is leaking exaggerated stories about his investigations to The Times.
Lavender is tasked with solving the theft of an aristocrat's precious jewels, while Woods is instructed to track down a libeller. But after a series of vicious murders and surprising coincidences, they discover that their apparently unconnected cases have more in common than they could ever have imagined. They disobey orders and work together to track down the killers.
Faced with some of the most bizarre mysteries of their career, Lavender and Woods need all their cunning and guile to expose the devious secrets of their suspects, solve these deadly crimes - and prove to Magistrate Conant that as a team, they are so much greater than the sum of its parts.