The Book
William Monk awakes on a hard cot in a strange place. He knows nothing about where he is. Or come to think of it who he is. He doesn't remember his own name. A little bit frightened of what has happened, a kindly male nurse explains things to him, supplying him with his name and his occupation, that of a police detective. After a couple more weeks of recovery he goes back to work, and his supervisor, Runcorn, gives him a murder case to solve. But not a fresh one, an old one. One that happened the same night Monk had his accident. The victim was a Crimean War Veteran Major the Honorable Joscelin Gray, the youngest brother of Lord Shelburne. Grey was savagely beaten to death, with the assailant beating the man again and again after he was dead. Monk is looking for a man who was enraged beyond reason. And after six weeks, the trail is cold.
But Monk is a clever, ruthless man. And despite the fact he can't remember anything about his past, he won't let that stop him. As flashes of memory come back to him, he finds he is haunted by the face of a pretty woman, Mrs. Imogen Latterly. He just can't remember why. After awhile he figures out it was to investigate her father-in-law's suicide. As he tugs at the strings of both cases, he keeps running across Imogen's sister-in-law, the quick tempered, blunt Hester Latterly, one of Florence Nightingale's Crimean War nurses. They cross paths at Lord Shelburne's home, where the quickly misunderstand each other and have quite a little sarcastic, blunt little tete-a-tete. When Hester tells Grey's aunt, Lady Callandra Daviot, about the encounter, Callandra gently tells Hester she was probably wrong. Hester trusts her friend, so when Monk finally confesses about his lost memory to Hester, she believes him and helps him out by trying to figure out what Imogen wanted Monk to do. When she succeeds, it leads Monk to realize the cases are intertwined more deeply than he knew, and he has to face the fact he might have been the one who murdered Joscelin Grey.
My Thoughts
This is my favorite series by Anne Perry. I love the hard, ruthless look Monk takes while he tries to piece his life back together. He's an objectionable character, but he is honest, both with himself, and with others. And I love the quick tempered Hester Latterly, the Crimean War Nurse who has so much more to give her world than her world wants to let her. I believe this series, at least in it's early days, says with as much artistry as Perry has her view on the world and on oneself. Her belief that each of us can look inside ourselves, face our darkest demons, and resolve, deliberately to be a better person. That those actions, if we persist long enough, and work hard enough are what matter. And she chooses two protagonists who exhibit the strengths and frailties of the human condition with masterful effect. Thomas and Charlotte Pitt are wonderful characters, but the characters in those books tend to go a little too far to be quite believable.
Perry has made her turn from pure puzzle mystery, puzzle mystery/police procedural quite well. There are not as many clues as in a puzzle mystery. I tend to feel a bit more like I do in the Michael Connelly's when I'm mostly along for the ride, but if I read it carefully enough, I should be able to glean what it was I supposed to see and solve it ahead of my intrepid detective. I have yet to solve this one first, I must confess, even though I own the audiobook version of this story. Having said that...
How Much My Library Card Saved Me
If I own the audiobook version of the story, I have made the choice to read it in print. I first did that with The Secret of Chimneys (which if the sheer number of mentions makes it a great book, the yeah, it's great....because for some reason I can't shut up about that stupid book. Well, lookey there, I hate it and I'm off topic.) Unlike that other book, this one is a delight to read. This copy of the book entered my library on April 19, 2013. This copy has been well read, by gentle readers. The cost of the book was $15.00.
This Book $15.00
This Summer $495.87
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