Ezra, a 16-year-old surgeon's apprentice is enjoying his tutelage under one of London's top surgeons when he is drawn into a murder mystery. He quickly turns detective in his attempts to discover the connection between the dead bodies that keep turning up. A corpse with a strange tattoo and missing tongue, and a magician who has been poisoned - could there be a connection between the two? As he forms an unlikely alliance with the magician's daughter, the fiery Loveday, they seek to uncover the mystery of the dead men, before more lives are lost. Set against the bustling backdrop of London in the late 1700s, amongst resurrectionists and corrupt surgeons, Ezra must uncover this mystery, but will it cost him his life?