The Book
Scotland Yard sends for Monk after they discover the body of Mickey Parfitt in the River, making it a River Police crime. Mickey Parfitt is the River's successor to Jericho Phillips of the previous novel, the one who abducted Scuff for use on his "pleasure" boat. It seems Parfitt has taken up the same disgusting trade. Now Monk must find Parfitt's killer. Was it one of his blackmail victims? Was it one of the abused boys? Was it the man, the power, the money behind Parfitt's boat. Monk needs to know. If it's the money behind Parfitt, Monk is intent to putting an end to the trade on the River once and for all.
But the scars of the loss from the Phillips case are still fresh. Scuff is still having nightmares. Hester's reputation is hanging on by a thread and it put a serious strain on her relationship with her friends Sir Oliver Rathbone and his wife Lady Margaret Ballinger Rathbone. The ugly allegations that Margaret's father, Arthur Ballinger financed it all taints the relationship. Margaret doesn't believe it. Monk, Hester, and Sir Oliver don't know what to believe.
It seems for a moment, Arthur Ballinger might be spared, when a dissolute patron of Hester's Rupert Cardew is implicated and arrested for the crime. Although Rupert declares he didn't do it, he was drunk that night and cannot account for his time during the murder window. But then, one of the prostitutes he frequents admits to stealing a very distinctive cravat and passing it along, the case against Rupert is dropped and Monk must begin again.
With all of the publicity, when Monk makes his next arrest he's got to win or lose his job as Commander of the River Police. When Arthur Ballinger is arrested it means the end of Hester's friendship with Margaret. But will it be the end of Monk?
My Thoughts
I dislike how dark the entries in this set of books, and I believe there is one more book in this series dealing with the same set of issues, are. But there can be no doubt, Anne Perry is exploring through fiction some of the realities she lived with in while she was growing up. The tension, mismatch, and overall degradation of a marriage is closely chronicled over the course of six books. How two people who you may believe are destined to be happy, indeed every indication in the early parts of their relationship prove to be both fascinating and complementary and slowly, as they face an external crisis how they fail to come together to make their marriage work. Perry certainly had a front row seat to the destruction of her parent's marriage and saw the results of her best friend's divorce first hand. She writes this part of the book with empathy and largely without judgement towards the parties. But I don't like it.
True, this is the extension of the literary foil technique Perry has implemented throughout the series, starting in
A Dangerous Mourning, with the introduction of Sir Oliver Rathbone to be a foil for Inspector William Monk and extended after the resolution of that story arc to Margaret Ballinger, who first appears in
Death of a Stranger. While Hester grappling with her feels between the ruthless Monk and the polished Rathbone serves a narrative purpose to sharpen both Monk's reformation after his accident and Hester's place in society, the addition of Margaret, in my opinion, does nothing for the narrative arc of the series. No matter how finely done. My advice is to skip the previous book, this book, and the next one and pick up the one after that. If you can.
How Much My Library Card Saved Me
This book came to me from the Des Plaines Public library (hi to my friend Cam who works there). It entered their collection in August of 2011. The 305 page first edition is in great condition for a book that is nearly 15 years old. There are no marks, no dog ears, and only one teeny tiny tear on one of the cover pages. Well done Des Plaines readers. The inside cover says the book cost $26.00 when it was released this is the number I will use.
As a side note, if you go back on this blog and track the price of a hardcover first edition of the previous decade, from approximately the year 2000 to the date this was published, you see that the price of a hardcover was about $25 and barely rose to $26. The US inflation calculator tells me that given how inflation actually worked over this period of time, the actual cost of the book should have retailed for $32. The lack of inflation in this regard goes to show just how crowded the book market was. True, eBooks were by this time pushing traditional publishing out of the market place, but saturation and declining reading for pleasure have been driving forces behind consolidation and dropping profit margins, not technology. Interesting.
Library Books
This Book $26.00
Library Items Reviewed This Year $26.00
Private Books
This Book $3.00
Total of Private Books $3.00
Total of All Items Reviewed This Year $29.00
Still Here?
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The Book
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