Blood on the Water

Blood on the Water puts Monk in command of the River Police investigation into the explosion of the pleasure boat Princess Mary, which kills nearly two hundred people on the Thames. The political pressure to convict quickly is intense, and when Monk demonstrates that the convenient suspect was elsewhere at the time of the blast, the investigation is thrown into disorder. Perry brings the Victorian age's imperial anxieties to the surface, connecting the bombing to the imminent opening of the Suez Canal.

David Colacci's narration gives the novel its Victorian grandeur and the Thames its appropriate weight as both a working waterway and a symbol of imperial power. The investigation's expansion from personal crime to international intrigue is handled by Colacci with the sustained authority the novel's ambitions require.