RIVER OF FALLEN ANGELS

A shutterbug sleuth pursues a brutal serial killer on the loose in Victorian London.

April 1891. Sarah Barrett, a photographer for the Daily World, is shooting a construction worker who dangles precariously from London’s Tower Bridge when she and a crowd of onlookers spot some body parts floating in the Thames below—remnants of what appears to be the latest of the Torso Murders. Having already solved the mystery of Jack the Ripper, Sarah finds herself drawn to the challenge of untangling this series of crimes as well. Her probe triggers the first threat to her post-honeymoon bliss with DS Thomas Barrett, her husband of less than a year. Thomas is clearly troubled but unwilling to share the reason why. Over the course of Sarah’s previous cases, Rowland developed an engaging cast of supporting characters whom she introduces incrementally here so that new readers won’t feel left behind. Sarah’s flanked by Mick O’Reilly, who began as a Holmes-ian street urchin and has evolved into a mature, if impetuous, sidekick, and Lord Hugh Staunton, her longtime friend and confidant, exiled by his family because of his homosexuality. Sir Gerald Mariner, owner of the Daily World, seems always on the brink of firing Sarah because of her sleuthing; Inspector Edmund Reid of Scotland Yard is the perpetual rival whom she regularly beats to the solution. Sarah’s investigative trail takes her through the city’s Tenderloin, which is home to more victims and an array of flamboyant suspects.

A brisk, atmospheric whodunit that continues the development of Rowland’s core cast.