Liverpool, 1952. The war may be over, but the city still bears its scars,ration books in hand, rubble in the alleys, and secrets buried deeper than the Mersey mud. When three dockworkers are found butchered on Albert Dock during the unloading of a Rhodesian tobacco shipment, whispers ripple through the waterfront: the Cornermen are back. But this isn't just street violence,it's a message, wrapped in blood and sent by unseen hands vying for control of Britain's postwar tobacco trade.

Enter William Silas Walker: forensic detective, crossword savant, and pigeon-feeding philosopher of Princess Park. With a mind honed by probability and a heart still grieving a mother lost to the Blitz, Silas refuses to let the dead stay silent. Joined by his steadfast friend Harry Coleman, a constable with fists and loyalty in equal measure, and Sarah Jones, a sharp-eyed forensic pathologist who reads bodies like novels, Silas must navigate a labyrinth of fear, silence, and corporate greed. In a city where being a "snitch" is a death sentence, truth is the rarest commodity of all.

As Silas dips ginger biscuits into his tea and pores over blood spatter patterns under gaslight, he uncovers a conspiracy that reaches from the smoky backrooms of Imperial Tobacco to the shadowy boardrooms of a rival consortium. With emerging technologies like transistors and early computers whispering the future, Silas clings to one belief: there are no coincidences. And every murder leaves a thread,if you're willing to pull it.