That rainy morning in March of 1878, as I climbed out of a hansom cab near the stone arch that opens onto Scotland Yard, a passerby spat at me. “Liars and cheats, all o’ ye,” he hissed. “Better off at the bottom of the bloody Thames.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from retorting and strode across the wet cobblestones to the door. At least it was only one man. Back in November, it would’ve been a mob screaming curses and pelting me with foul eggs.

I couldn’t blame them. Three of our inspectors had just been convicted at the Old Bailey of taking bribes from criminals who had conned unsuspecting members of the public out of thousands of pounds. The scandal had been trumpeted in headlines of the size usually reserved for railway disasters or assassination attempts on the queen: “INSPECTORS GUILTY! SCOTLAND YARD CORRUPT! PARLIAMENT, SHUT THE DOORS!”

It was mortifying.

I swung open the door, shook the rain from my coat and hat, and surveyed the busy main room. The twenty of us plain-clothes men were all doing our damnedest to reestablish our decent reputation. I peered around for Mr. Stiles, my partner of the past four months—an amiable young bloke, with a bit of public-school polish on him that I never acquired, growing up thieving and bare-knuckles boxing in Whitechapel. But Stiles wasn’t at his desk.

I entered my small, cluttered office and unbuttoned my coat as I stared out the dirty window to the visible slice of river. Some people say the Thames is the lifeblood of London. In a certain light, I can see it, on those rare days when the sunlight silvers the waves among the barges and ships that bring in the foodstuffs and mail, the textiles and machines—all the necessities of our modern life. But most days, I consider it a cesspool, full of detritus and dregs and dead bodies.

“Corravan.”

I turned to find Stiles at the threshold, his brown eyes lacking their usual spark.

“What is it?”

“A dead woman in a boat at Wapping. Director Vincent wants us both to go.”

“I have twenty cases already,” I barked. “I don’t want another one.”

“I know,” he said mildly.

Sometimes, now, looking back, I wish I could have known just how much this case would demand of me. How it would nearly kill Stiles, threaten Belinda, and change the way I approached detection forever. How I would face a tide of violence let loose by a man as lawless and vengeful as the mythical Irish monster Ellén Trechend roaring out of its cave.

But I had no idea what was to come.

So I put my coat and hat back on, and Stiles handed me my umbrella. That was Stiles, trying to keep me from catching my death, even when I growled at him. I nodded my thanks, and we headed out to find a cab to take us down Fleet Street to Wapping Police Division, on the north shore of the dark river.

Down a Dark River, An Inspector Corravan Mystery #1
Genre: Historical
Release: November 2021
Purchase Link

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. One April morning, a small boat bearing a young woman’s 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.

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 dead women seem to have no connection whatsoever. Meanwhile, Mr. Stiles makes an alarming discovery: the shipping magnate’s 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.

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 past—for which someone has vowed a brutal vengeance. Now, with the newspapers once again trumpeting the Yard’s failures, Corravan must dredge up the truth—before London devolves into a state of panic and before the killer claims another innocent victim.

About the author
Karen received her Ph.D. in English literature from New York University and subsequently taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her first novel, A Lady in the Smoke (Random House, 2016), was a USA Today bestseller, and A Dangerous Duet and A Trace of Deceit (William Morrow, 2018, 2019) have won awards for historical mystery and historical fiction. She is a member of MWA and serves on the board of Desert Sleuths, an Arizona chapter of Sisters in Crime. Earlier this year, she won a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Her fourth mystery, Down a Dark River, was released November 9, 2021 from Crooked Lane Books. She lives in Arizona with her family and her rescue beagle, Rosy. Connect with Karen at karenodden.com.

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