Frances Doughty is a young sleuth on her first professional case, trying to discover who distributed dangerously feminine pamphlets to the girls of the Bayswater Acadamy for the Education of Young Ladies. Armed with only her wits, courage and determination, she finds that even the most respectable denizens of Bayswater have something to hide, and what begins as a simple task soon becomes a case of murder. As election fever erupts and the formidable ladies of the Bayswater Women's Suffrage Society swing into action, Frances' enquiries expose lies, more murders and a long-concealed scandal, and she makes a powerful new friend.