The River Thames is a powerful symbol of London’s dual identity, representing both the city’s glistening, reinvented surface and its dark, violent undercurrents. Keefe establishes this paradox in the prologue, contrasting the Thames of the British Empire, a “pulsing artery” of commerce, with the menacing river of the Victorian imagination. Charles Dickens depicted it as a “malignant force […] ‘running away with suicides and accidentally drowned bodies’” (2). This historical association with death and danger creates a sense of foreboding that persists even after the waterfront is transformed into a “sanitized playground for tourists and young professionals” (3). The river’s modern incarnation reflects a city that has scrubbed away its industrial grit. However, Zac’s fall reveals this sanitation is merely a facade. The river once again becomes a repository for the city’s dark secrets, swallowing a victim of the very world of illicit money that funded the waterfront’s revitalization. By framing the narrative with the Thames, Keefe suggests that beneath the gleaming surfaces of a London remade by dirty money, the old, dangerous currents still flow, ready to claim those who get pulled under.