Clive Gifford

The Doctor and a newly-regenerated Romana arrive on Skaro to find that the Daleks, locked in a war with the robotic Movellans, have returned to retrieve their buried creator Davros.

Death stalks the fogbound streets of Victorian London: young women are going missing, horribly mutilated bodies are found floating in the Thames and criminal gangs terrorize the innocent. At the heart of this tangled web sits the mysterious Li H'sen Chang, sorcerer and hypnotist, and his grotesque sidekick Mister Sin. The Doctor dons deerstalker hat and cape to seek out the sinister force lurking in the shadows of the metropolis, for the Talons of Weng-Chiang are reaching out to shred the human race.

Pauline, Petrova, and Posy Fossil live with Sylvia Brown, their guardian. Money is tight and as the story opens, three boarders - a garage owner, a retired English professor, and a dance teacher - come to stay. Theo Dane, the dance teacher, has the girls accepted at her school by the formidable Madame, and the three go on the stage to help raise money. Each discovers her talents - Pauline as an actress, Petrova in fixing engines, and Posy as a dancer.

Summoned back to Gallifrey, the Doctor is framed for the assassination of the Time Lord President. To prove his innocence, he must stand for election himself, uncover the traitor in the Time Lord High Council, fight a hooded killer in a nightmare cyberspace world of his enemy's devising and battle against an old foe now out to destroy the Time Lords: The Master.