A sinister Fleet Street barber gains a reputation for excellence while secretly murdering unwitting customers and delivering their bodies to an accomplice who uses the flesh to supply a popular pie shop. Parallel threads follow missing jewelry and a sailor's gift that intersect with police inquiries, determined relatives, and chance discoveries, producing escalating suspense and grotesque revelations. The narrative unfolds through sensational, episodic chapters blending horror, dark humor, and social commentary on urban life, class, and appetite, building to exposure and retribution as investigators and informal sleuths piece together the barber's crimes.