The Detective Wore Silk Drawers — Peter Lovesey

The discovery of the headless corpses of several well-muscled men floating in the Thames puts Detective Sergeant Cribb on the trail of some very nasty goings-on. Illegal bare-fisted prize-fighting to be precise -- a sport outlawed in late Victorian England but still capable of attracting audiences and money to secret arenas. Cribb decides to break the organisation behind the brutal sport and even more brutal killings by infiltrating an athletic young policeman, Constable Jago, into the shady domain of Radstock Hall, headquarters of the fight promoters. Here Jago must learn to withstand round after round of punishing bare-knuckled pugilism -- and the lascivious attentions of the beautiful but sadistic Isabel Vibart.