The Glass Witness

A corpse beneath Blackfriars Bridge is only the beginning of what the fog is hiding. Reuben Calder finds the body half-stranded in the mud of the third arch, abandoned by the tide and the city alike. The dead man carries no name, no coin, and a single clue pointing toward the shipping empire of the late Tobias Whitfield. When Adelaide Whitfield, imperious widow of that fallen magnate, moves swiftly to bury the inquiry alongside her husband's reputation, Reuben refuses to be bought, bullied, or distracted. His search threads through fog-choked wharves and gaslit parlors, drawing in the watchful Night Watchman Pell, the sharp-eyed Petrena Sole, and the evasive Harbor Magistrate Lynden, whose clerk keeps careful records that vanish as quickly as they are written. Each step forward tightens the noose: a Grey-Coated Man shadows Reuben's every move, Fenwick Hale offers truths laced with danger, and Halden Voss circles the case like a carrion bird. Even young Severin Whitfield, still grieving his father, seems to know more than grief alone could teach him. With twenty chapters of mounting tension, Reuben must decide how far he is willing to chase a secret that powerful men have already killed to keep. The truth beneath Blackfriars will either name a killer, or add one more body to the river.