Execution Dock tells the story of another fascinating and complex case in the career of William Monk, superintendent of the Thames River Police, a man who has pulled himself up from a deprived childhood and a difficult past to play a vital role in the teeming crime scene that is Victorian London. The novel opens with a breathlessly exciting chase scene, as Monk and his team literally jump from barge to boat to dock in pursuit of Jericho Phillips, a child pornographer who runs a sex ring using small boys. He houses his young victims in an old ship that, constantly on the move, is difficult to catch, plus he has many rivermen and powerful businessmen in his power due to threatened blackmail. Monk has decided this situation can no longer continue and is determined to arrest him. When the body of a 13-year-old boy washes ashore and is revealed to be another of Phillips' victims, murdered because he had out-grown his appeal to the pornographer's clients, the urgency to convict Phillips gains new urgency. But Monk is to learn that arresting Phillips, difficult as it is, turns out to be merely the first step in a nightmarish attempt to successfully imprison him. Monk's wife Hester and several memorable characters from Dark Assassin, among them Scuff, the mudlark, and Sutton, the ratcather, return to this richly complex story, the first William Monk novel in three years, and one of Anne Perry's best.