A stranger is watching. . . . It's 1881, and life has been good to Sally Lockhart. Unlike most Victorian women, Sally is completely independent, with her own successful business and a comfortable home for her young daughter, Harriet. But Sally's whole world is about to collapse. A stranger emerges, claiming to be both her husband and Harriet's father and threatening all that she has--her business, her child, her very sanity. Sally realizes with growing horror that there is a guiding hand behind this deceit: someone who hates her so passionately that he has devoted years to bringing about her ruin. And there's only one man that could possibly be. . . . From the award-winning author of His Dark Materials comes a richly layered adventure of suspicion and intrigue--and the third acclaimed Sally Lockhart mystery.