Dark Tide Rising

 by Anne Perry

This is a mystery about William Monk a former police inspector who was dismissed and later became a Commander with the Thames River Police.

The wife of a wealthy London man has been kidnapped, the kidnappers want the ransom delivered to an unsavory part of the London waterfront.  The man asks some of the Thames River Police to accompany him on the drop.  Monk chooses a number of his best men but someone their presence was expected and they get beat up, the money is taken and the man's wife is found brutally murdered.

Monk feels one of his men may have betrayed them and spends a lot of time worrying and trying to figure out who it might be.  There is a low level criminal who is suddenly spending a lot of money.  Monk thinks he might have had some involvement with the kidnapping and murder but before they can get him to interrogate him, the man is found murdered.

In order to raise the money for the ransom the husband has had to get the trustee of his wife's pending inheritance (she would inherit in a couple years), to agree to release the funds for the ransom.

One of Monk's key staff becomes romantically interested in the cousin of the dead woman.  This is a conflict of interest.  Monk really feels for the man because the woman who is now his wife was once kidnapped.  So he thinks he knows how the man feels.

A young woman comes forward to say she has evidence of some financial irregularities by the bank that held the man's accounts and his wife's trust account.  Before she can deliver proof to Monk she is found dead.

Eventually the husband is arrested for murder.  Monk is trying his best to prove the husband innocent but in the end it is discovered that the man did indeed arrange the kidnapping to get at his wife's money, he may have felt she would leave him.  We never find out who actually did the brutal killing.

Monk realizes that he let his emotions over-rule his judgement in this case.

I enjoyed this book, it kept you interested and guessing.