1888: a violinist is brutally murdered in his Edinburgh home. Fearing a national panic over a copycat Jack the Ripper, Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Frey. Frey reports to Detective "Nine-Nails" McGray, local legend and exact opposite of the foppish English inspector. McGray's tragic past has driven him to superstition, but even Frey must admit that this case seems beyond belief...

There was no way in or out of the locked music studio. And there are black magic symbols on the floor. The dead man's maid swears there were three musicians playing before the murder. And the suspects all talk of a cursed violin once played by the Devil himself. Inspector Frey has always been a man of reason-but the longer this investigation goes on, the more his grasp on reason seems to be slipping...