The Butcher's Daughter — David Demchuk

The story of the vengeful barber Sweeney Todd has gripped fans across literary, stage, and screen renditions -- but little has been revealed about Mrs. Lovett, Todd's notorious partner in crime. Until now.

Enclosed herewith: a bloodcurdling correspondence of profound horror and intrigue, based on the original Victorian penny dreadful that started it all.

London, 1887: At the abandoned apartment of a missing young woman, a dossier of evidence is collected, ordered chronologically, and sent to the Chief Inspector of the London Metropolitan Police. It contains a frightening correspondence between an inquisitive journalist, Miss Emily Gibson, and the woman Gibson thinks may be the infamous Mrs. Lovett -- Sweeney Todd's accomplice, “a wicked woman” who baked men into pies and sold them in her pie shop on Fleet Street. The talk of London Town -- even decades after her horrendous misdeeds.

As the woman relays the harrowing account of her life -- from her upbringing on Butcher's Row in the unruly streets of Victorian London to her daring escape from a mad doctor -- her missives unlock an intricate mystery that brings Miss Gibson closer to the truth, even as that truth may cost her everything.

A hair-raising and breathtaking novel for fans of Sarah Waters and Gregory Maguire, The Butcher's Daughter is an irresistible literary thriller that draws richly from historical sources and shines new light on the woman behind the counter of the most disreputable pie shop ever known.