July 25, 2016
In bestseller Perry’s workmanlike 22nd William Monk novel (after 2015’s Corridors of the Night), the Victorian-era Thames River Police commander, who suffers from amnesia caused by a carriage accident years earlier, is baffled why a customs officer, McNab, bears him such enmity. The question is much more than academic, since Monk suspects McNab tipped off river pirates to a police operation and thereby caused the death of Monk’s second-in-command. That history leads Monk to question McNab’s motives in handing over a drowning case to him. The victim, Blount, was a master forger who escaped from custody while being interrogated by McNab’s men. Blount was shot in the back, but the autopsy reveals that the wound was received post-mortem. Meanwhile, after yet another prisoner escapes from the custom officers, Monk fears for his life. The social commentary that informs the best of Perry’s work is largely missing, an absence that is palpable given the unremarkable plot line. Agent: Donald Maass, Donald Maass Literary.
September 1, 2016
Perry is a best-selling, prolific producer of two series set in Victorian England, averaging a book a year for each. One is the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series; the second stars William Monk, the somewhat amnesiac commander of the Thames River Police, now in its twenty-second installment. Devotees of both series may find some formulas repeating themselves, especially that of transporting a twenty-first-century concern (like domestic violence) into Victorian England. The Monk novels have another device that is wearing thin, that of his memory loss from a carriage accident 13 years ago that leaves him deprived of knowledge of his past life, and vulnerable because of it. It's now 1869, and Monk discovers a body in the Thames that turns out to be that of an escaped convict. A second death soon follows, and Monk faces both an investigation and peril from his enemies. A subplot involving domestic violence is formulaic but gripping. This is definitely a lesser entry in an immensely popular series, but longtime fans won't want to miss a part of the story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)
April 15, 2016
Commander William Monk of the River Police realizes that the man pulled from the murky Thames with a bullet in his back was a notorious forger who'd just escaped from prison. Monk's investigations lead him into his own shuttered history.
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