When Kit, a work-obsessed literature student, goes on a whim to a dance class she is hoping simply to take her mind off her studies. Soon it looks like Joe, a stranger she meets there, may tempt her to put her books aside and live a little. But when Kit uncovers a mystery involving the young Charles Dickens and the slaughter of a prostitute known as The Countess, she is sucked back in to the world of books, and discovers how Dickens became tangled up with this horrendous crime.