Private enquiry agent William Monk is hired to investigate a potential case of fraud in the construction of a new railway line. His client is the fiancée of a man she fears is embroiled in the scheme, and Monk's investigation causes a strange sense of déjà vu--a former policeman afflicted with a case of amnesia concerning his prior life, Monk finds both the case and its milieu unsettlingly familiar. His case is somehow connected to the death of a railway magnate in a sleazy area of London where Monk's wife Hester, a nurse, operates a shelter for abused prostitutes. The women have been doubly victimized by an extortion scheme in which the dead man, who turns out to have been Monk's employer during his "lost" years, may have been involved. More than an ingenious way to fill in Monk's backstory, Anne Perry's newest mystery featuring the enigmatic investigator deepens the reader's understanding of an unusual and compelling protagonist and brings Victorian-era England vividly to life. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Perry's latest novel (after 2001's Funeral in Blue) to feature mid-Victorians William Monk and his wife, Hester, offers an ingenious and baffling plot, compelling characters, both major and minor, plus plenty of courtroom drama, but is something of a diamond in the rough. In London's East End, Hester, a former nurse with Florence Nightingale, has established a shelter for prostitutes where the ill and injured can be treated. One night, a well-known railway magnate is found dead in a nearby brothel, and the police presence in the area grinds the illicit business of the pimps and prostitutes to a halt. William, meanwhile, has undertaken a private investigation into possible fraud. His client, the fiancee of a young executive for the same railway as the murder victim, fears her betrothed may be implicated in the fraud scheme. As William recognizes parallels with the past, memories that he lost in an accident seven years earlier start to haunt him. Unfortunately, the book suffers from hasty execution, as reflected in repetitious phrasing, pronouns with unclear antecedents and confusing narrative transitions between Hester and William and between William in the present and William before his amnesia. The result is a challenging read, though established fans will likely forgive the author her lapses because she tells such a wonderful story.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
A welcome addition to Perry's William Monk mystery series, this book opens with the murder of a wealthy railroad businessman in a brothel. Outraged by the crime, high society pressures the police into cracking down on prostitution. But a police presence is bad for business, and the pimps take out their frustration on the call girls. These battered women seek medical assistance at a Coldbath Square clinic run by Monk's wife, Hester, who believes that solving the murder is the only way to help them in the long run. Meanwhile, a mysterious young socialite asks Monk to investigate her fiance, a partner in a successful railroad company that, she fears, is involved in fraud and corruption. As Monk looks into the matter, he begins to remember things about his own past that might be all too relevant. Perry has written another compelling story of greed, cunning, and passion, featuring characters that readers have come to know and love. Highly recommended for all mystery collections. Laurel Bliss, Yale Arts Lib.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
While William Monk battles amnesia to solve a case involving possible railroad fraud, his wife, Hester, finds herself working on the same case through a different channel. Hester's post as a volunteer nurse in London's Red Light District has brought her into the investigation of a railroad magnate's murder. David Colacci's understated performance relies on light characterization and brilliant transitions in dialect to portray the main characters, spiced with somewhat overstated interpretations of a few bit players. The contrast works well to maintain variety and interest, and to lend credibility to all. Colacci's subdued narrative passages can be a bit hypnotic on the long stretches, and the dialogue not always frequent enough to revive them. R.P.L. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Perry's highly acclaimed Victorian gaslighters starring London private investigator William Monk have all harbored a secret at their core: William Monk's past life, shrouded from him by amnesia. Perry's 11 previous Monk novels toy with the torment the investigator endures as a result of his amnesia. In Perry's latest, Monk's past catches up with him, threatening to overwhelm his sanity and his carefully constructed life. Fans of this highly acclaimed series (Perry writes two Victorian mystery series, one starring Monk, the other starring Thomas Pitt) will delight in the way clues to Monk's past, strewn through previous volumes, add up to a startling but fitting revelation. All readers will profit from Perry's deft handling of three mysteries at once here, as well as her providing a wealth of historical detail. The mysteries converge on the clinic operated for prostitutes by Monk's wife, Hester. On the night a railroad magnate is found murdered in a London brothel, three badly beaten prostitutes seek help at the clinic. Their plights, the mystery of the murdered gentleman, and Monk's past all start to intersect when a young woman seeks Monk's aid in investigating her fiance, who she fears may be guilty of fraudulent practices at his railway firm. The plot steams along to a heart-stopping climax. Another Perry tour de force. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“Few mystery writers this side of Arthur Conan Doyle can evoke Victorian London with such relish for detail and mood.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

“Perry can write a Victorian mystery that would make Dickens’s eyes pop.”
–The New York Times Book Review



Review
?Few mystery writers this side of Arthur Conan Doyle can evoke Victorian London with such relish for detail and mood.?
?San Francisco Chronicle

?Perry can write a Victorian mystery that would make Dickens?s eyes pop.?
?The New York Times Book Review

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
As the bestselling author of two Victorian-era mystery series, Anne Perry knows the mannerisms and fine historical details of gaslight England. In her 12th novel featuring investigator William Monk, she continues to entertain with a story that finally reveals her protagonist's amnesia-shrouded past.

Monk is hired by Katrina Harcus to investigate her fiancé, Michael Dolgarno, who is possibly involved with railroad fraud. As soon as he begins his inquiries, Monk is assailed by bits of memory that lead him to believe he, too, may have been a criminal of some sort. Although his marriage to Hester is a stabilizing force in his life, he fears the potential results of his investigation and tries to keep his wife at arm's length. But when a railroad mogul is murdered in a London brothel and three battered ladies of the evening seek help at the clinic operated by Hester, Monk is drawn into yet another puzzle that may have something to do with his former life.

Unlike Perry's other Victorian sleuth, the sociable Thomas Pitt, Monk has always been a tormented individual ultimately alone in the world. Perry should be credited for her slow yet memorable planting of clues across all the previous Monk novels, subtly forming the framework for his past. She adroitly and convincingly manipulates several plot threads to give the reader a startling and remarkable disclosure in this fascinating, powerful entry in the Monk series. Tom Piccirilli

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Few authors have written more mesmerizingly about Victorian London than Anne Perry. Readers enter her world with exquisite anticipation, and experience a rich variety of characters and class: aristocrats living in luxury, flower sellers on street corners, ladies of the evening seeking customers on gaslit streets, gentlemen in hansom cabs en route to erotic diversions unknown in their Mayfair mansions. Now Perry gives her myriad fans the book they’ve been waiting for—the novel in which William Monk breaks through the wall of amnesia and discovers at last who he once was.

DEATH OF A STRANGER

For the prostitutes of Leather Lane, nurse Hester Monk’s clinic is a lifeline, providing medicine, food, and a modicum of peace—especially welcome since lately their ailments have escalated from bruises and fevers to broken bones and knife wounds. At the moment, however, the mysterious death of railway magnate Nolan Baltimore in a sleazy neighborhood brothel overshadows all else. Whether he fell or was pushed, the shocking question in everyone’s mind is: What was such a pillar of respectability doing in a seedy place of sin?

Meanwhile, brilliant private investigator William Monk acquires a new client, a mysterious beauty who asks him to ascertain beyond a shadow of a doubt whether or not her fiancé, an executive in Nolan Baltimore’s thriving railway firm, has become enmeshed in fraudulent practices that could ruin him.

As Hester ventures into violent streets to learn who is responsible for the brutal abuse of her patients, Monk embarks upon a journey into the English countryside, where the last rails are being laid for a new line. But the sight of tracks stretching into the distance revives memories once stripped from his consciousness by amnesia—as a past almost impossible to bear returns, eerily paralleling a fresh tragedy that has already begun its inexorable unfolding.

SYNOPSIS

Few authors have written more mesmerizingly about Victorian London than Anne Perry.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Perry's latest novel (after 2001's Funeral in Blue) to feature mid-Victorians William Monk and his wife, Hester, offers an ingenious and baffling plot, compelling characters, both major and minor, plus plenty of courtroom drama, but is something of a diamond in the rough. In London's East End, Hester, a former nurse with Florence Nightingale, has established a shelter for prostitutes where the ill and injured can be treated. One night, a well-known railway magnate is found dead in a nearby brothel, and the police presence in the area grinds the illicit business of the pimps and prostitutes to a halt. William, meanwhile, has undertaken a private investigation into possible fraud. His client, the fianc e of a young executive for the same railway as the murder victim, fears her betrothed may be implicated in the fraud scheme. As William recognizes parallels with the past, memories that he lost in an accident seven years earlier start to haunt him. Unfortunately, the book suffers from hasty execution, as reflected in repetitious phrasing, pronouns with unclear antecedents and confusing narrative transitions between Hester and William and between William in the present and William before his amnesia. The result is a challenging read, though established fans will likely forgive the author her lapses because she tells such a wonderful story. (Oct. 1) Forecast: Perry is also the author of the Thomas Pitt Victorian series, most recently Southampton Row (Forecasts, Jan. 14), which was up to her usual high standard. Pressure to deliver the same quality on the first of her forthcoming WWI quintet may account for the relative weakness of what seems like a wrapup of the Monk series. Nonetheless, this entry should sell well enough. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In this novel, Perry takes us back to the Victorian England of William Monk, a private investigator who is working on a new case-one that is awakening disturbing images from his amnesia-shrouded past, and he is not quite sure he wants to revisit that time. Meanwhile, William's wife, Hester, a nurse who works in a free clinic, is beginning to see patients who are from a better class than the usual prostitutes she treats, and their injuries are more severe. When a wealthy railway magnate is found dead in a local brothel, the number of clients and the severity of their injuries increases. The author manages quite a few plot lines at one time, and listeners new to this series might become a bit confused as the story jumps from plot to plot and from William's current life to his amnesiac past. David Colacci gives an animated performance, ably handling the various dialects. Recommended for all public libraries.-Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ., Russellville Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

AudioFile

While William Monk battles amnesia to solve a case involving possible railroad fraud, his wife, Hester, finds herself working on the same case through a different channel. Hester's post as a volunteer nurse in London's Red Light District has brought her into the investigation of a railroad magnate's murder. David Colacci's understated performance relies on light characterization and brilliant transitions in dialect to portray the main characters, spiced with somewhat overstated interpretations of a few bit players. The contrast works well to maintain variety and interest, and to lend credibility to all. Colacci's subdued narrative passages can be a bit hypnotic on the long stretches, and the dialogue not always frequent enough to revive them. R.P.L. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

In the seven years William Monk (Funeral in Blue, 2001, etc.) has plied his trade as an inquiry agent, his fear of what he might find has prevented him from ever inquiring very closely into his own past, curtained off by amnesia. Now a new pair of cases holds a dark mirror uncomfortably close. Eminent railroad builder Nolan Baltimore has been found dead near a brothel in the London neighborhood of the shelter Monk￯﾿ﾽs wife Hester runs for abused prostitutes, with every indication that he was killed by a lady he￯﾿ﾽd engaged for the evening￯﾿ﾽperhaps a recent debtor to a usurer like Squeaky Robinson who recoiled in murderous horror when she realized the price of interest service on her debt. Katrina Harris, all but engaged to Baltimore￯﾿ﾽs partner, Michael Dalgarno, comes to Monk with suspicions that cast Baltimore & Sons in an even more sinister light. She wants Monk to refute the evidence she￯﾿ﾽs uncovered that links Dalgarno to a construction fraud that could lead to a hideous accident just like the train crash 16 years ago that killed 40 children￯﾿ﾽa crash that sent Monk￯﾿ﾽs mentor, banker Arrol Dundas, to die in prison, and one that Katrina￯﾿ﾽs evidence suggests Monk himself may have been more closely implicated in than he cares to remember.