Gower Street, London, 1882: Sidney Grice, London's most famous personal detective, is expecting a visitor. He drains his fifth pot of morning tea, and glances outside, where a young, plain woman picks her way between the piles of horse-dung towards his front door. Sidney Grice shudders. For heaven's sake - she is wearing brown shoes.

Set between the refined buildings of Victorian Bloomsbury and the stinking streets of London's East End, The Mangle Street Murders is for those who like their crime original, atmospheric, and very, very funny.