Ruler of the Night

Thomas De Quincey is beginning to control his opium addiction when the excitement of his current case threatens to unravel his grip on reality once and for all. On their way home to the Lake District, the De Quinceys become unwitting witnesses to a truly historic murder: the first to take place on one of England's newly constructed railways.
The railways changed everything in the Victorian era, transforming the English countryside, revolutionizing modern industry, and as the De Quinceys discover, providing the perfect escape. Giving chase in a cat-and-mouse game unlike any that have come before, the De Quinceys uncover a dangerous secret that reaches all levels of English society.
"It’s difficult to imagine the extent of the British Empire during the
nineteenth century. British maps of the era depicted its territories in red, vividly illustrating that they stretched around the globe: Canada, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Cyprus, a large swath of Africa, India, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, on and on. As the saying went, the sun never set on the British Empire. It dominated a quarter of the planet’s landmass and a third of everyone living on it, far more than Alexander had conquered or the Romans had dreamed of possessing."