Dark Assassin, Anne Perry

 

The Book

William Monk has decided to pay his debt of honor to Inspector Durban by accepting Durban's job. In the few short weeks since he became the head of the Wapping Station of the Thames River Police, he has learned he must earn the respect of his men. He's made some small mistakes, but he's learning fast. In his bid to learn the job better, he is out on patrol with several men when he sees what appears to be an argument between two young lovers. They turn away, trying to give the couple some privacy, but when they turn back to them just a few moments later, they go over the railing together. They die in the chilly, winter river almost instantly. Now Monk has to determine if it's a suicide or not. 

To his horror, despite not being able to say exactly what has happened, it seems the young woman is being blamed for killing her ex-fiancé. Monk is not convinced, so he pursues the case, much to the consternation of his new boss. 

While he's on land, reconciling with Superintendent Runcorn, and looking into the deaths of both the lady who fell and her father, a plot to get rid of Monk for incompetence comes to a head. Monk knows he's walking into a trap when he agrees to take down one of the major fences in the area. But he doesn't have many choices. Crime, especially pickpocketing is up. Either Monk gets rid of a fence successfully or else he won't be able to clear Mary's name. Once that's done, he and Runcorn finally track down who killed her father and why. 

Her father worked for her ex-fiancé's company. The company is one of the largest digging under London in 1865 to put in a modern sewer system. The work is dangerous and accidents happen all of the time. But James believed, despite his fear of closed in spaces, that his company was taking too many big risks. He had the backing of an MP to pull the contracts if he can prove it, but he died, apparently by suicide, just before he turn in his work. Runcorn and Monk figure out it was murder when they track an assassin halfway across London before his trail goes cold. But then the question arises, who paid for the assassin? And can they prove it? 

My Thoughts

This book should not have published. The plot twist at the end, which I will not reveal, cannot possibly be correct. The person blamed at the end of the novel, who gleefully confesses, definitely could not have committed the last murder in the book. And yet, the character confesses to it. And they figure it out through testimony. It's a brilliant detail, one to make a reader read more closely. But the plot hole it opens up was not resolved. And yet, I own the audiobook version of this story and I did not catch it. Not in a single listen through. This time, I was reading the book. And because reading goes more quickly, or maybe after all of these years I just absorb the written word differently, I caught the error. I feel so smug. And yet, this is the type of logical error that I keep tracking down in my own work. I also feel relief to know that sometimes, these plot holes can get past a writer, an editor, all the beta readers, and whoever else worked on it. Maybe, I hope, some day, if I make the same mistake, I will be the only one who notices. I just hope it's not 20 years later. 

How Much My Library Card Saved Me

This book came to me from Huntly Public Library. The 306 page first edition hardcover book entered their system, according to the stamp on April 1, 2006. As we see with books that are frequently read and a little bit older, the spine of this book has a tilt to it. This is natural wear from glue slippage. The pages have a few dog ears, but there are so marks on. Well done people of Huntly. 

On a side note, since so many of these are from libraries that are not my home library, I kinda miss whomever was our "corrector of record" was. Although our corrector did the unpardonable sin of writing in a library book, they did it in pencil and the corrected what a continuity editor should have caught. These kind of mistakes riddle Anne Perry books. Somewhere after this book, I guess the publisher got enough complaints about it, and upped their game, because certainly there were fewer in subsequent years. But I digress. 

Both the front card and cover say this book was priced at $25.95 when it was purchased that it what I will use for our savings. 

This Book                                                        $25.95

Items Reviewed This Year                             $439.83

Private Books

This Book                                                        $0.00

Total of Private Books                                    $44.89

Total of All Items Reviewed This Year         $504.60

Still Here? 

 I am now a published author. You can pick up a *FREE COPY* of my novella The Big Intersection here.