John Taylor is the name. I work the Nightside. Only in that dark heart of London where it's always three A.M., where human and inhuman can feed their darkest desires, do I feel at home. Probably because I was born there.

What I do is find things-people, objects-and in this case, the truth about the origins of the Nightside.

That's what Lady Luck has hired me to investigate. But the more I dig, the more I discover, not about the Nightside but about the great question in my life: exactly who-and what-was my long-vanished mother.

Paying jobs are one thing. Personal quests are another. And I've been warned that uncovering the facts about dear old mum could be a very bad thing, not just for the Nightside but for all of existence.

Still I can't stop . . . I'm John Taylor. Finding things is who I am. It's what I do. Whatever the consequences . . .