DOWN A DARK RIVER

In the vein of C. S. Harris and Anne Perry, Karen Odden's mystery introduces Inspector Michael Corravan as he investigates a string of vicious murders that has rocked Victorian London's upper crust.

London, 1878. In the murky waters of the Thames, a young woman's body is discovered floating in a small lighter boat. When the body is identified as Rose Albert, daughter of a prominent judge, Michael Corravan must take the case. Corravan is one of only three remaining Scotland Yard Senior Inspectors remaining in the wake of a scandal that has left the force in ruins and Rose's case means he must abandon his search for missing woman Mrs. Beckford, the wife of a shipping magnate. Corravan resentfully agrees, knowing Rose's case must take precedence.

An Irish former bare-knuckles boxer and dockworker from London's seedy East End, Corravan has good street sense and an inspector's knack for digging up clues. But he's confounded when, a week later, a second woman is found dead in a rowboat, and then a third. The deaths seem to have no connection whatsoever. Then, Corravan's deputy, Mr. Stiles, now assigned to the Beckford case, makes an alarming discovery: Mrs. Beckford didn't flee her house and vanish because she was insane - as her husband claims - but because something unspeakable happened there. Slowly, it becomes clear that the river murders and the case of the missing Mrs. Beckford may be linked through some terrible act of injustice in the past - for which someone has vowed a brutal vengeance. Now, Corravan must dredge up the truth before the killer claims another innocent victim.

Karen Odden received her Ph.D. in English literature from New York University and has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She has contributed essays and chapters to books and journals, including Studies in the Novel, Journal of Victorian Culture, and Victorian Crime, Madness, and Sensation; she has written introductions for Barnes and Noble editions of books by Dickens and Trollope; and she formerly served as an Assistant Editor for the academic journal Victorian Literature and Culture. She resides in Arizona with her husband, two teenage children, and a ridiculously cute beagle named Rosy. Her first novel, A Lady in the Smoke, was a USA Today bestseller and won the New Mexico-Arizona 2017 Book Award for e-Book Fiction.