Haunted by the failure to catch Jack the Ripper, Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) is charged with keeping law and order in Whitechapel. Reid is assisted by Detective Sergeant Bennet Drake (Jerome Flynn) and former US Army surgeon and Pinkerton agent Captain Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg). They frequently cross paths with brothel madam Long Susan (MyAnna Buring), who came to London with Jackson. All will come to depend on one another to uphold justice - both moral and legal - in the dying days of Victorian England.