Anne Perry’s seventeenth William Monk novel, now in paperback, is a mesmerizing masterpiece of innocence and evil on London’s docks, a welcome addition to this successful and beloved series.   NATIONAL BESTSELLER   On a London riverbank, when the body of small-time crook Mickey Parfitt washes up with the tide, no one grieves. But William Monk, commander of the River Police, is puzzled by the murder weapon: an elegant scarf whose original owner was obviously a man of substance. Dockside informers lead Monk to a floating palace of corruption on the Thames managed by Parfitt, where a band of half-starved boys is held captive for men willing to pay a high price for midnight pleasures. Though Monk and his fearless wife, Hester, would gladly reward Parfitt’s killer, duty leads them in another direction—to an unresolved crime, to a deadly confrontation with some of the empire’s most respected men, and ultimately to a courtroom showdown with Monk’s old friend, Oliver Rathbone, in a trial of nearly unbearable tension and suspense.   “Masterful storytelling . . . [the] best in the series to date.”— The Star-Ledger “Fascinating and fast-paced . . . will keep readers entranced.”—Wichita Falls Times Record News   “[An Anne Perry novel can] take us away to the far reaches of our imaginations, to a place and a time about which we can only dream. . . . We see the gaslight, we feel the fog, and in Perry’s latest, Acceptable Loss, we experience the horror of murder, blackmail and sordid crime, as well as the shining victory of heroic sacrifice and personal courage.” —Asbury Park Press   “The real drama in the story involves the struggle between loyalty and truth. Questions of morality and painful choices haunt every chapter.”— Lincoln Journal Star   “Terrific . . . Readers will not be prepared for the twists and turns that lay in wait.”—Bookreporter Anne Perry  is the bestselling author of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England: the William Monk novels, including  Blind Justice  and  A Sunless Sea , the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels, including  Death on Blackheath  and  Midnight at Marble Arch.  She is also the author of a series of five World War I novels, as well as eleven holiday novels, most recently  A New York Christmas,  and a historical novel,  The Sheen on the Silk,  set in the Ottoman Empire. Anne Perry lives in Scotland and Los Angeles. chapter 1 Hester was -half--asleep when she heard the slight sound, as if someone were taking in a sharp breath and then letting out a soft, desperate gasp. Monk was motionless beside her, his hand loose on the pillow, his hair falling over his face. It was not the first time in the last two weeks that Hester had heard Scuff crying in the night. It was a delicate relationship she had with the boy she and Monk had befriended. He had lived on the streets by the river and had largely provided for himself, which had made him wise beyond his age, and fiercely independent. He considered he was looking after Monk, who in Scuff's opinion lacked the knowledge and the fierce survival instincts required for his job as head of the Thames River Police at Wapping, in the heart of the London docks. Until last month Scuff had come and gone as he'd pleased, spending only the occasional night at Monk's house in Paradise Place. However, since his kidnapping, and the atrocity on the boat at Execution Dock, he had come to live with them, going out only for short periods during the day, and tossing and turning at night, plagued by nightmares. He would not talk about them, and his pride would not let him admit to Hester that he was frightened of the dark, of closed doors, and, above all, of sleep. Of course she knew why. Once the tight control he kept over himself in his waking hours slipped from him, he was back on the boat again, curled up on his side beneath the trapdoor to the bilges, nailed in with the -half--rotted corpse of the missing boy, fighting the swirling water and the rats, the stench of it making him gag. In his nightmares it did not seem to matter that he was now free, or that Jericho Phillips was dead; Scuff had seen the man's body himself, imprisoned in the iron cage in the river, his mouth gaping open as the rising tide trapped him, choking off his voice forever. Hester heard the gasping sound again, and slipped out of bed. She pulled on a wrap, not so much for warmth in the late September night, but for modesty so as not to embarrass Scuff if he was awake. She crept across the room and along the passage. His bedroom door was open just wide enough for him to pass through. The gas lamp was on low, maintaining the fiction that she had forgotten and left it on, as she did every night. Neither of them ever mentioned this. Scuff was lying tangled in the sheets, the blankets slipped halfway to the floor. He was curled up in just the same position as they had found him in when she and the -rat--catcher, Sutton, had pried open the trapdoor. Without d