Helpful Score: 2
Anne Perry and her Victorian Detective William Monk at their best. Phenomenal plotting and tight story line. Highly recommended.
Helpful Score: 2
This was a great William Monk read. Hester and Monk share their first kiss after several books of hints of an attraction between them. Hester is on trial for murder and Monk and Rathbone desprately seek to clear her.
Helpful Score: 2
In the two series that Anne Perry authored, William Monk and Thomas Pitt, she builds the characters and their lives as she delves into their latest mystery which enhances her stories with an added dimension. If you wish to get the most out of her series, here are the Monk books in the order in which they were written: 1990-Face of a Stranger, 1992-A Dangerous Morning, 1994-A Sudden Fearful Death, 1995-The Sins of the Wolf, 1996-Cain His Brother, 1997-Weighed in the Balance, 1998 The Silent Cry, 1998-A Breach of Promise, 2000-The Twisted Root, 2000-Slaves of Obsession, 2001-Funeral in Blue, 2002-Defend & Betray, 2003-Shifting Tide. For historical (Victorian Age) fiction mystery lovers, she is the greatest for a delightful pageturner.
Helpful Score: 1
Wow, what a story! The 5th in her William Monk series, this is one of her best. So brilliantly written that new writers should study it to see just how to keep readers up late into the night because they simply cannot put this book down. You can feel Hester's terror as she faces execution for a crime she did not commit. Absolutely a great book.
Helpful Score: 1
The doyenne of Victorian historicals (The Hyde Park Headsman, LJ 3/1/94) offers another mystery masterwork in the William Monk series. After nurse Hester Latterly's elderly charge dies on the train from Edinburgh, the police charge her with murder via an overdose of heart medication. Hester is innocent, of course, so Monk hastens to Edinburgh for a background search of the family who originally hired Hester. Back in London, lawyer Oliver Rathbone prepares to defend Hester but must defer to the Scottish courts. As always, Perry's measured, literate prose and strict attention to every detail of custom, location, and culture result in pure reading pleasure.