Jeremiah Bourne is in greater danger than he realises. As Jeremiah is swept from his crumbling home in Blackfriars in 2019, to the same house but in 1910, he suddenly faces two questions: how did he get here, and how can he get back to his own time? On his quest for answers, he encounters a cast of comic characters and situations: a coven of free-thinking spiritualists, a futuristic residents' association, warring street gangs, eugenic scientists, aggressive domestic servants and a nudist magistrate. But his activities have alerted a community of time travellers from the future, who set out to capture and investigate him. Who can Jeremiah trust to help him? And could there be a link between his time-travelling gift and his mother's sudden disappearance when he was only nine? Will he inadvertently lead the wrong people to her?