Die I will not

Penelope Wolfe is a young mother trapped in an unhappy marriage, and in London in 1813 she has reason to dread scandal reaching her family, and something worse. A Tory newspaper editor was stabbed while drafting a rebuttal to the newest letters signed "Collatinus." Twenty years earlier, Penelope's father, Eustace Sandford, a political radical, had written under that same name before fleeing the city ahead of charges of treason and murder. The crimes traced back to a striking woman known only as N.D., who had been savagely killed, and whose name was tied to Sandford.

The fresh Collatinus letters, which denounce the Prince Regent in print, claim to be bent on avenging N.D. and exposing her killer. Penelope must ask what the murdered editor had discovered that made him a target. With her artist husband, Jeremy, offering little dependable help, she seeks out the lawyer Edward Buckler and John Chase, a Bow Street Runner.