Anne Perry and her Victorian Detective William Monk at their best. Phenomenal plotting and tight story line. Highly recommended.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Charged with poisoning her patient, Hester is imprisoned at Newgate. Nothing she had suffered in the Crimea prepared her for the cold, dark isolation in her terrible cell. To save her from the gallows, Monk follows an intricate trail, full of twists, turns and frustrations. Hester's circumstances are chilling and her trial difficult but fascinating. Not until the final pages will the true mystery be unraveled. Excellent.

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Imagine yourself in Victorian times, beginning an overnight train journey with your new employer, a Scottish matron, and finding that she's died during the night! What a way to begin (and end) a new job, ending up miles from home without resources. It gets worse when the dead woman's missing pearl brooch is found in your possession, and the postmorten shows poison!

This daunting situation requires the detective skills of William Monk, Anne Perry's new private investigator, who is himself an enigma. He himself has amnesia and is rediscovering parts of himself in all his cases as he interacts with the network of informers he once knew and the Scotland Yardsmen who were once his colleagues. A riveting read!

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