A Dangerous Mourning, by Anne Perry

The Book

    William Monk is handed a highly political case just four weeks after closing the Grey case. Superintendent Runcorn is certain only Monk will do to solve the murder of the daughter of the politically connected Sir Basil Moidore, an extremely influential government official. Olivia Haslett was a widowed woman, still mourning her much beloved husband Captain Harry Haslett who died leading one of Lord Cardigan's charges of the light brigade in the Crimean War. It looks like a burglar broke in and murdered her when she caught him. But Monk quickly proves it had to have been an inside job. 

    Meanwhile, nurse Hester Latterly is feeling stifled in her job at a respectable hospital. Her boss is a stuffy, prideful man who believes that Hester constantly oversteps her duties when she advocates for her patients. But it's not in her nature to be someone she's not. And when a patient rats her out about how she saved a child's life, Hester is dismissed. When Monk finds out, through the devious machinations of Lady Callandra Daviot, he decides to put Hester inside the Moidore house to see if she can help him crack the case. Hester bravely agrees. 

    But once inside, nothing is domestic bliss. Lady Moidore takes to her bed, terrified one of the family members killed Olivia, meanwhile the ambitious other family members, tired of having the police about, make sure Monk suspects the disagreeable footman Percival. When Percival is accused, Monk refuses to arrest him, believing it's a frame up.  Runcorn fires Monk for insubordination. 

    Runcorn won't live down the embarrassment, when Monk proves Percival didn't do it. The real question is, will Monk figure it out in time to save an innocent man. And if he does, will the brilliant barrister Oliver Rathbone, Esq,, powers of persuasion be enough? 

My Thoughts

    Here we have the introduction of Oliver Rathbone, the man who will become the best friend to both Hester and Monk over the course of the next few books. When Anne Perry decided to expand her worlds into the courtroom, Oliver Rathbone was an excellent choice. Here in this set of novels, I see a balance. She's taken what she has learned about writing a good story and has expanded it into so much more. Hester and Monk are complicated people, who have fights because they are passionate about their missions. They are both honest to a fault, and have zero tolerance for fools. They loathe injustice, but they are fortunate in their friends. And both are willing to be honest with themselves. In this way, having more flawed characters than Charlotte and Thomas Pitt, the telling of Perry's little morality plays is more layered. She has options open to her than she perhaps foreclosed in the Pitt series. And the Pitt series is more political, I believe that took an unexpected turn for her, with some parts of Victorian society, especially in the late 1880s that she just could not look away from. 

    But in this series, we are farther back in the Victorian era. And with the earlier dates and the lessons learned, this series is more artistic than her first. I have to admit, that of all of Perry's characters, I love Hester Latterly the most.  

How Much My Library Card Saved Me

    As with The Secret of Chimneys, I do own an audiobook of this title. I read through all of the William Monk titles to date one summer at my parent's house when my oldest two were preschoolers. Afterwards, when I got an Audible Membership, I started collecting the series. I am now 6 audiobooks from the end of that endeavor, and I will complete it before the end of the year. But as with the other titles I own, I am checking out the physical books and reading through them one by one. This book entered my library on Oct 19, 2017 and is another of the Ballantine Books Trade Paperback series my library invested in over the course of the last decade. This book has obviously not been frequently read. The book was hard to hold and I almost had to wrestle it open with my fingers. At 344 pages it felt heavy in my hand. 

However, the cover says the book sold for $16.00 at that time. 

This Book                           $16.00

This Summer                    $602.85

    

  

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