At the outset of the 20th century, Denton—a Civil War veteran and former Western lawman—moves to London to reinvent himself as a writer. Denton has a passion for justice and for women in distress, and in this series, both get him into plenty of tight scrapes as he tries to help those in need.

Denton knows better than to go around doing people favors, but at the request of an old friend, he seeks out the extremely tedious Mrs. Snokes. She declares that her husband is innocent, but the newspapers have dubbed him the "Barnsbury Butcher." Worse, Denton is helping the man's brattish son, entangled in a liaison with a woman who could wreck his future. As Denton juggles these cases, he'll hardly have time to write that new novella—though not for want of material.