As commander of the River Police, Monk is accustomed to violent death, but the entrails hanging from the mutilated female body found on Limehouse Pier one chilly December morning move him with horror and pity. The victim’s name is Zenia Gadney. Her waterfront neighbors can tell him little—only that the same unknown gentleman had visited her once a month for many years. She was quiet and dull, unlike the usual fallen doxy; her pillar of support was respectable Dr Lambourn, recent suicide after his government requisitioned report on opium was discredited.
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