William Monk knows London's streets like the back of his hand; after all, they are where he earns his living. But the river Thames and its teeming docks - where towering schooners and clipper ships unload their fabulous cargoes and wharf rats and night plunderers ply their trades - is unknown territory.
Only dire need persuades him to accept an assignment from shipping magnate Clement Louvain to investigate the theft of a cargo of African ivory from Louvain's recently docked schooner, the Maude Idris. Monk is desperate for work, not only to feed himself and his wife, Hester, but to keep open the doors of her clinic, a last resort for sick and starving street women.
But he wonders: Why didn't Louvain report the ivory theft directly to the River Police? Why did he warn Monk not to investigate the murder of one of the Maude Idris crew? Even more mysterious, why has Louvain brought to Hester's clinic a desperately ill woman who, he claims, is the discarded mistress of an old friend? Neither Hester nor Monk anticipates the nightmare answers to these questions . . . nor the trap that soon so fatefully ensnares them.
William Monk, private investigator, and his wife, Hester, nurse and feminist, are a fascinating couple operating in Victorian England. In the latest of this series, Monk reluctantly takes a case involving cargo theft and murder while Hester spends most of her time helping at a clinic for street women. A confirmed case of death from the plague brings the two plot lines dramatically together. David Colacci is a master at portraying the London lowlifes of alley and waterfront, as well as the more aristocratic characters such as Rathbone, Monk's lawyer friend. Thanks to excellent pacing and characterization, the listener is gradually drawn into this story until its explosive conclusion. J.B.G. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Anne Perry is the bestselling author of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England: the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels, including Seven Dials and Long Spoon Lane, and the William Monk novels, most recently The Shifting Tide and Dark Assassin. She is also the author of the World War I novels No Graves As Yet, Shoulder the Sky, Angels in the Gloom, At Some Disputed Barricade, and We Shall Not Sleep, as well as the holiday novels A Christmas Journey, A Christmas Visitor, A Christmas Guest, A Christmas Secret, and A Christmas Beginning. Anne Perry lives in Scotland. Visit her website at www.anneperry.net.
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