The tenth Victorian-era whodunit featuring detective William Monk comes to paperback after selling nearly 70,000 copies in hardcover. Monk and his wife, Hester Latterly, are hired to track down a man's missing fiance, who suddenly abandoned the prospect of a loving marriage and financial abundance.
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The tenth Victorian-era whodunit featuring detective William Monk comes to paperback after selling nearly 70,000 copies in hardcover. Monk and his wife, Hester Latterly, are hired to track down a man's missing fiance, who suddenly abandoned the prospect of a loving marriage and financial abundance.
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Anne Perry's mysteries are always so well researched that they are totally engrossing, and edge-of -the seat exciting, history lessons.
This book is one of the Inspector Monk series and I can't say it is the best because they are all so excellently done.
In this one, a well-to-do young man's fiance bolts in the middle of a party but why? He comes to William Monk to find the reluctant bride.
Monk's wife, Hester, is a nurse in a time when nurses were so low on the social scale that they were paid, partly, in ale. Now that she is married, she is working as a volunteer in a hospital. She had been with Florence Nightengale in the Crimea during that brutal war, and had learned to do real nursing, as we think of it today. However, the establishment in England stil does not recognize nurses for what they can do for the patients.
She wokrs with some nurses who are good at their jobs and even one who goes out to help in her community.
Monk's case takes him to the neighborhood where this nurse lives, and visits, thus Hester gets drawn into the investigation.
Between the search for the missing woman and the secrets the characters are hiding, we have an abundance of suspects. I never figured out the right one but I came close.
Read the book and see how you do with Perry's misdirections and twisting plot.
You will have a thoroughtly enjoyable read.
Jangus
Feb 8, 2008
Perry at Her Best
There are times when I feel hoodwinked by Ann Perry when she contrives a surprise ending with no hints--indeed, being led away from important clues. This is not one of her writings, which are prolific by any standard. This mystery is part of the Monk series, whose characters, by this time, are part of my own family. The novel has two or three themes, all of which were dealt with in a brilliant fashion. It features Monk's wife, Hester, one of Florence Nightingale's nurses in the Crimean War, her husband William, now a private detective, and a young man who has fallen in love with an older" woman, who runs away just before their marriage. The second (recurring) theme is the way nursing evolved into a profession in England. The third theme (if it is a separate entity) involves how the world's poor and elderly are treated even to today. The three plots intertwine in a complicated but fascinating narrative. The end, which I could not even imagine, stunned me. (Having read almost all of POerry's books, I didn't think it could happen.) I hesitated to get to there, waking up in the middle of the night to sneak a peek at the next pages or chapter, but limiting the amount I read, as if it were a delicious chocolate.. You will love this book!
