The Frankenstein Chronicles

London, 1827: River Thames at night - a smuggling operation is underway - suddenly, a river police launch is bearing down on the smugglers and a fight breaks out, followed by a furious chase to the shore. John Marlott, a senior river police officer and veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, paces the shoreline of the Thames reviewing the aftermath. A sharp police whistle draws his attention towards a small shape lying at the water's edge. As he approaches he sees it is the body of a child, a young girl around 10 years of age. Her body is covered in crude sutures, and is a horrifying sight. He reaches down to touch the dead hand - but in a moment of terror, the hand grabs him back! The dreadful corpse is brought to the urgent attention of the Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, who summons Marlott, and tells him that he wants him to undertake a private investigation. The leading surgeon at St Bart's hospital in Smithfield, Sir William Chester, tells Marlott that the corpse was made up of seven or eight bodies stitched together. Marlott is put to work within the offices of the Bow Street Runners, and recruits an optimistic young runner, Nightingale, to assist him. Marlott's attention is then drawn towards a slum dwelling where criminal Billy Oates masterminds his gang of child criminals. There he discovers a young girl, Flora. He also finds a painting on the wall. It is "Little Girl Lost" by the artist William Blake - Marlott resolves to investigate further.

Marlott visits the house of artist and printmaker William Blake who is on his deathbed, but he receives Marlott as a prophet of things to come. Marlott confers with Nightingale who has been keeping watch on a public house, The Fortune of War, which is situated opposite St Bart's hospital in Smithfield. This is where the body snatchers gather, along with their "goods" which they sell at the hospital. Marlott identifies one body snatcher, Pritty, as potentially helpful, and he and Nightingale set up a cunning sting, which brings him into their service. Pritty is most indignant; body snatching is not illegal. He considers himself to be a businessman and hotly denies anything to do with the sutured child - though he does know of a gang who might not shrink at darker acts. Marlott charges him to arrange a meeting with them. Marlott is visited by a Lady Hervey, a beautiful aristocrat and devoted Christian. She passionately opposes the Anatomy Act because she believes it will lead to a world without God. She begs Marlott to do whatever he can to stop the act being passed. Marlott attends an anatomy lecture at St Bart's, given by Garnet Chester, the flamboyant cousin of Sir William, who performs a galvanising experiment on a young corpse. As the dead arm twitches to a sensational response from the students, the lecture is disrupted by anti Anatomy Act supporters. Marlott follows them to a public debate being conducted by a powerful MP, Bentley Warburton, who attempts to rouse the poor about the horrors of public dissection and urges them to demonstrate about the coming Anatomy Act. A curious eye meets Marlott's - young journalist Boz is writing a story about the coming act and Marlott quizzes him. Boz sets his sights on unraveling the secrets behind Marlott's quest.

Flora has escaped the clutches of Billy Oates and throws herself on Marlott's mercy. Believing her to be a key witness to Alice's disappearance, he brings her to his lodgings for safety. Nightingale continues to pursue various suspects with mixed success, much to Marlott's frustration, who feels that they are slipping away between his fingers. One person of interest who introduced herself to Marlott at Blake's house is the writer Mary Shelley. Marlott has been reading her novel Frankenstein and travels to Kentish Town to investigate how she devised her horrifying tale. He finds it hard to believe the connection between her monster and the child corpse is a mere coincidence. Shelley is guarded and defensive - is there something in her past, which she is concealing? Marlott visits Lady Hervey, whose brother runs a charitable clinic, and asks for them to take Flora in to protect her. Hervey invites Marlott to go to church with her but he is disturbed by the experience - he tells Lady Hervey that his faith has been shaken since the death of his wife and baby daughter and he feels God is lost to him. Pritty enters his bank in a rush - he wants to withdraw all his money. But Nightingale is watching him and in a fierce chase, he apprehends Pritty and takes him to Bow Street for further questioning. Marlott meets Daniel Hervey at the clinic, which is also a hospice for the poor. He agrees to take Flora. But he also identifies a sore on Marlott's hand as a reappearance of syphilis. Hervey offers to treat him with a new medicine he has invented, but Marlott declines, preferring the established mercury treatment. Marlott is surprised at home by a visit from Sir William Chester, enquiring about Marlott's investigation. Is he also a person of interest?

Marlott takes a terrified Pritty on his assignation to meet the men who kill for money and they find themselves in the tunnels under Smithfield market, which run from the Fortune of War pub to St Bart's Hospital. In the darkness, Marlott meets Mrs Bishop and the gang - her sons. For a price, they will kill to order; Marlott pretends he needs a fresh dead girl and says he will identify her and they arrange a rendezvous for the following night. Flora has returned to Marlott's lodgings. Marlott calls on the Herveys' London house to find out more about her decision to return to him - Daniel says she was determined to leave. Marlott quizzes him further about the surgeons and in particular the study of galvanism - electrifying the dead back to life. Hervey is skeptical but persuades Marlott to take a bottle of tincture for the sore on his hand. Now that Flora is back, Marlott intends to use her as bait for the Bishop gang, much against Nightingale's wishes as he has fallen for Flora. When the Bishops kidnap Flora, Marlott calculates her destination - a brickworks and kiln just outside London. In hot pursuit, a shoot out erupts and the gang are killed or dispersed - Mrs Bishop is taken off for trial. Marlott discovers fresh and old corpses in the brick kiln - including the unconscious Flora. Mary Shelley has left her house in London and arrived at a country house in which we discover scientific contents are covered in dust and covers - as she pulls off the covers she reveals a large galvanising machine and a gurney covered in blood.

Boz, having followed Marlott and his case, has published his newspaper article, The Frankenstein Murders, which causes a public outcry and infuriates Peel on the eve of the Anatomy Act. Mary Shelley visits Sir William - and challenges him about his medical practice; he threatens her with violence and she leaves. In the hospital, Flora is watched over by her doctor, Garnet Chester, who declares his love for her lifeless form, with "my little girl lost has been found." Marlott arrives, and Flora awakes, indicating that Garnet raped her. Marlott says he will expose Chester, carries Flora out and takes her home. As Parliament prepares to debate the Anatomy Act, scenes of public mayhem take place outside St Bart's. Inside, Garnet Chester has been found dead, an apparent act of suicide in the face of exposure as a rapist and possibly worse. Westminster Lobby is in a hubbub as the day of the Anatomy Act has arrived. Peel delivers a dazzling speech, watched by Marlott, Boz and the Herveys, and the Act is passed. In Marlott's lodgings that night, Flora and Nightingale announce their intention to marry but Marlott will not join them to celebrate. He has to go back to Greenwich where he found the body and where the Chesters have a house, to work out what happened there.

Marlott begins to put together the pieces surrounding the movement of bodies into the hospital and new suspects set his disturbed mind spinning. Mary Shelley is set to leave England but Marlott argues that she should go public with what she knows about experiments using galvanism. Though Marlott insists this nightmare is of her creation, she wants nothing more to do with the issue and flees the country with her son Percy. As suspicion grows around certain suspects, Sir Robert Peel meets with Sir William Chester at the hospital. Marlott, sensing he is getting dangerously close to solving the mystery, seeks authorisation for a pistol...