In the world of shadow magic, Charlie Hall is a famous thief. For ten years, she worked for the Shadowmen, people with power over shadows. Charlie used to steal old books and scrolls containing methods of manipulating shadows, all sorts of magical secrets, and sometimes even worse... But she has changed. She works as a barmaid. She lives with a boyfriend without a shadow and a sister obsessed with the desire for magic. Time and again, she rejects the offers of the owner of a shadow parlour, who wants to persuade her to work for him again... The past that Charlie is trying to escape from haunts her like a shadow. So when the sadistic billionaire Lionel Salt forces her to find the stolen Book of Night, which is a tasty prey for many, she plunges into a familiar world of chaos, lies, blood, and manipulation.