This vivid and fast-paced novel, full of action and adventure, recreates the London of 1803 through the eyes of Jupiter Williams, a proud young black boy boarding at the African Academy in Clapham. He is the son of former slaves who had won their freedom and returned to Sierra Leone where they had prospered sufficiently to be able to afford an English education for their children. When his brother Robert disappears, Jupiter embarks on a dangerous journey to trace him and is drawn into a London underworld where a poorer black community struggles to survive.