In teeming Victorian London, where lavish wealth and appalling poverty exist side by side, one mysterious man navigates both worlds with perfect ease. Rich, handsome and ingenious, Edward Pierce preys on the most prominent of the well-to-do as he cunningly orchestrates the crime of his century. Who would suspect that a gentleman of breeding could mastermind the daring theft of a fortune in gold? Who would predict the consequences of making the extraordinary robbery aboard the pride of England's industrial era, the mighty steam locomotive? Based on fact, as lively as legend, and studded with all the suspense and style of a modern fiction master, here is a classic novel, set a decade before the age of dynamite - yet nonetheless explosive.