Under a Veiled Moon: An Inspector Corravan Mystery

The real-life 1878 collision on the Thames of the Princess Alice, a pleasure steamer, with the much larger and heavier Bywell Castle, a cargo ship, propels Odden’s exceptional sequel to 2021’s Down a Dark River. More than 500 people died in the crash, mostly passengers on the steamer. The Commissioner of Wrecks takes charge of raising the sunken Princess Alice and determining the cause of the accident. Meanwhile, the head of the Wapping River Police asks Michael Corravan, who has overcome a troubled past to rise to the rank of acting superintendent, to ascertain whether the disaster was deliberately caused, possibly by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a group that recently dynamited a rail line. Corravan’s conclusions could affect nascent discussions of granting Ireland home rule. Born in Ireland and adopted by an Irish family, Corravan has a personal stake in the inquiry’s outcome. Odden never strikes a false note, and she combines a sympathetic lead with a twisty plot grounded in the British politics of the day and peopled with fully fleshed-out characters. Fans of Lyndsay Faye’s Gods of Gotham trilogy will be enthralled. Agent: Josh Getzler, HG Literary. (Oct.)