A Better Quality of Murder, by Ann Granger

Inspector Ben Ross and his new wife Lizzie Martin are back in Victorian London after their last adventure solving a murder in the New Forest.

Between their excursion to Hampshire and their latest problem of solving a spate of murders they were married and are now living south of the Thames, not far from Waterloo railway station.

As Ben is walking home across a fogbound Waterloo Bridge, he accidentally bumps into a prostitute who claims she has just escaped an unpleasant encounter with the mysterious River Wraith, who is known to terrorise women of the streets under the cover of thick foggy peasoupers.

Soon after reaching home, Ben hears of the murder of a woman in Green Park. Despite the distance between the river and the Royal park, could there be a link?

With the help of his wife, now known as Elizabeth Martin Ross, the search for clues switches to a temperance hall near Waterloo station. The theatrically knowledgeable, incidentally, might be disappointed that the hall is not the foreunner of the Old Vic theatre.

Mrs Ross, accompanied by her housemaid Bessie, calls into the hall and quickly deduces that the charismatic preacher Joshua Fawcett is a fraud.

It transpires that the victim in Green Park was the wife of a wealthy art dealer living in Egham with a gallery in Piccadilly, close to the scene of her death. Her companion, too, is murdered on a train journey from Surrey to Waterloo.

Fans of Bicester author Ann Granger will relish this tale, which culminates in the unmasking of the River Wraith. As this is the third novel in her Ross and Martin series, let us hope it will be extended beyond the projected fourth volume.