Synopses & Reviews
In her new masterpiece featuring private inquiry agent William Monk, New York Times bestselling novelist Anne Perry displays her prodigious writing talent. With insight, compassion, and a portraitist's genius, Perry illuminates the shifting tide of emotions encompassing Queen Victoria's London and the people who live there aristocrats, brothel owners, thieves, Dickensian ruffians, and their evil keepers. She takes us through dangerous backstreets where the poor eke out their humble livings, and into the mansions of the rich, safe and secure in their privileged lives. Or so they believe.
William Monk knows London's streets like the back of his hand; after all, they are where he earns his living. But the river Thames and its teeming docks where towering schooners and clipper ships unload their fabulous cargoes and wharf rats and night plunderers ply their trades is unknown territory.
Only dire need persuades him to accept an assignment from shipping magnate Clement Louvain to investigate the theft of a cargo of African ivory from Louvain's recently docked schooner, the Maude Idris. Monk is desperate for work, not only to feed himself and his wife, Hester, but to keep open the doors of Hester's clinic, a last resort for sick and starving street women.
But he wonders: Why didn't Louvain report the ivory theft directly to the River Police? Why did he warn Monk not to investigate the murder of one of the Maude Idris crew? Even more mysterious, why has Louvain brought to Hester's clinic a desperately ill woman who he claims is the discarded mistress of an old friend? Neither Hester nor Monk anticipates the nightmare answers tothese questions...nor the trap that soon so fatefully ensnares them.
In this magnificent novel, Anne Perry holds the reader spellbound, as Monk and Hester struggle to save themselves and their world from a catastrophe whose dimensions they can scarcely measure.
Review
"[S]cenes that could have come out of Dickens's Our Mutual Friend....As the sailor says, 'River's full o' tales,' and Perry knows how to bring them to life." Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Sketchy characterization, a somewhat obvious plot, but marvelous historical material on the Thames." Connie Fletcher, Booklist
About the Author
Among
Anne Perrys other novels featuring investigator William Monk are
Death of a Stranger,
Funeral in Blue,
Slaves of Obsession, and
The Twisted Root. She also writes the popular novels featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, including
Seven Dials,
Southampton Row,
The Whitechapel Conspiracy, and
Half Moon Street. In addition, she is also the author of a new series set during World War One that began with
No Graves as Yet. Her short story “Heroes” won an Edgar Award. Anne Perry lives in Scotland. Visit her Web site at www.anneperry.net.
From the Hardcover edition.