In the vein of C. S. Harris and Anne Perry, Karen Oddenโs mystery introduces Inspector Michael Corravan as he investigates a string of vicious murders that has rocked Victorian Londonโs upper crust.
London, 1878. One April morning, a small boat bearing a young womanโs corpse floats down the murky waters of the Thames. When the victim is identified as Rose Albert, daughter of a prominent judge, the Scotland Yard director gives the case to Michael Corravan, one of the only Senior Inspectors remaining after a corruption scandal the previous autumn left the division in ruins. Reluctantly, Corravan abandons his ongoing case, a search for the missing wife of a shipping magnate, handing it over to his young colleague, Mr. Stiles.
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An Irish former bare-knuckles boxer and dockworker from Londonโs seedy East End, Corravan has good street sense and an inspectorโs knack for digging up clues. But heโs confounded when, a week later, a second woman is found dead in a rowboat, and then a third. The dead women seem to have no connection whatsoever. Meanwhile, Mr. Stiles makes an alarming discovery: the shipping magnateโs missing wife, Mrs. Beckford, may not have fled her house because she was insane, as her husband claims, and Mr. Beckford may not be the successful man of business that he appears to be.
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Slowly, it becomes clear that the river murders and the case of Mrs. Beckford may be linked through some terrible act of injustice in the pastโfor which someone has vowed a brutal vengeance. Now, with the newspapers once again trumpeting the Yardโs failures, Corravan must dredge up the truthโbefore London devolves into a state of panic and before the killer claims another innocent victim.