A Sudden, Fearful Death - (William Monk) by Anne Perry (Paperback)

About the Book

"In a London hospital, Prudence Barrymore, a talented nurse who had once been the one of Florence Nightingale's angels of mercy in the Crimean War, meets sudden death by strangulation. Private inquiry agent William Monk is engaged to investigate this horrific crime--which intuition tells him was no random stroke of violence by a madman. Greatly helped by his unconventional friend Hester Latterly, another of Miss Nightingale's nurses, and barrister Oliver Rathbone, Monk assembles a portrait of the remarkable woman. Yet he also discerns the shadow of a tragic evil that darkens every level of society, and a frightening glimmer of his own eclipsed past."--]cPublisher's description.

Book Synopsis

In a London hospital, Prudence Barrymore, a talented nurse who had once been one of Florence Nightingale's angels of mercy in the Crimean War, meets sudden death by strangulation. Private inquiry agent William Monk is engaged to investigate this horrific crime-which intuition tells him was no random stroke of violence by a madman.

Greatly helped by his unconventional friend Hester Latterly, another of Miss Nightingale's nurses, and barrister Oliver Rathbone, Monk assembles a portrait of the remarkable woman. Yet he also discerns the shadow of a tragic evil that darkens every level of society, and a frightening glimmer of his own eclipsed past.

Review Quotes

"Riveting . . . [a] surpassingly excellent historical and psychologically intricate mystery."--Publishers Weekly

"Absorbing . . . Perry continues her excellent renderings of Victorian manners and mayhem."--Chicago Sun-Times

"[Anne Perry] is adept at showing the reader two sides of Victorian London-the dark side where people are barely surviving and glittering society where people sometimes kill to hide terrible secrets."--Knoxville News-Sentinel

About the Author

Anne Perry was the bestselling author of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England: the William Monk novels and the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels. She was also the author of a series featuring Charlotte and Thomas Pitt's son, Daniel, as well as the Elena Standish series; a series of five World War I novels; twenty-one holiday novels; and a historical novel, The Sheen on the Silk, set in the Byzantine Empire. Anne Perry died in 2023.