To all appearances Jack Swann is a typical gentleman of the Regency period; educated, cultured and affluent. In his early thirties, he is an attractive and eligible bachelor, with all the resources needed to live a privileged life.Haunted by the murder of his father twenty years earlier - the perpetrators of which have never been caught - Swann has, however, turned his back on this world and chosen instead to fight crime as `The Regency Detective', an unofficial consulting detective to the Bow Street Runners in London.Arriving in Bath for a family funeral, Swann finds several reasons for staying in the city: to protect Mary, his sister, from the mysterious Lockhart; to find the `Scarred Man', who might lead him to his father's killer; and to end the reign of terror by Wicks, the local underworld boss who, in turn, sets out to have Swann assassinated.