"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Pollan, a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants -- and the equally powerful taboos Of all the things humans rely on plants for--sustenance, beauty, fragrance, flavor, fiber--surely the most curious is our use of them is to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities...

As commander of the River Police, Monk is accustomed to violent death, but the mutilated female body found on Limehouse Pier one chilly December morning moves him with horror and pity. The victim's name is Zenia Gadney. Her waterfront neighbors can tell him little--only that the same unknown gentleman had visited her once a month for many years. She must be a prostitute, but--described as quiet and kempt--she doesn't appear to be a fallen woman. What...

Eighteen-year-old aspiring chemist Elinor Dashwood and her younger sister Marianne, a budding detective, work together to solve the mystery of their father's murder. Includes author's note.

"A period novel about a female detective who goes undercover (occasionally as a man), to infiltrate a smuggling ring, and navigates shifting allegiances once on the inside" --