Billie Piper returns to the BBC as fearless Victorian heroine

An elderly lady loses her money on an investment, a conjuror is pursued by thugs, a clairvoyant sees a brutal murder in a forest, a glass coffin then whispers the name of the richest man in Europe.

These seemingly unconnected events set Sally Lockhart on the trail of an evil far more awful than she could ever imagine – the Hopkinson Self-Regulator – a super-weapon in the hands of a Scandinavian madman Axel Bellmann.

Once again Pullman's much-loved and fearless heroine Sally Lockhart embarks on a mission – this time to find out why her elderly client's investment crashed and what links the clairvoyant's murderous vision to the rich industrialist, Bellmann. As Sally closes in on the truth it becomes devastatingly clear that her life will never be the same again.

Billie Piper heads up an all-star cast including JJ Feild, Jared Harris, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Matt Smith, John Standing and Hayley Atwell. The Shadow In The North, is the second book in a quartet by novelist Philip Pullman and charts the adventures of Sally Lockhart (Billie Piper), a feisty young Victorian heroine.

Bafta award-winning Adrian Hodges (Charles II, Rome, The Lost World and Pullman's first novel in the series The Ruby In The Smoke) has adapted Phillip Pullman's intricate and cleverly woven plot and set it in the heart of Victorian London.

The Shadow In the North is produced by Kate Bartlett, directed by John Alexander and is a BBC WGBH Boston co-production for BBC. The cast also includes: David Harewood, Dona Croll, Georgia King, Crispin Redman and Lyndsey Marshal.