William Monk Series

When a ransom exchange turns deadly in this thrilling mystery from bestselling author Anne Perry, Commander William Monk faces an unthinkable possibility: betrayal by his own men.
 
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST CRIME NOVELS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • “Riveting . . . one of the series’ more powerful recent entries.”—Publishers Weekly

When kidnappers choose a broken-down waterside slum as the site of a ransom exchange for the wife of wealthy real estate developer Harry Exeter, the Thames River Police and Commander William Monk shadow Harry to the spot to ensure that no harm comes to him or his captive wife. But on arrival, Monk and five of his best men are attacked from all sides. Certain that one of his colleagues has betrayed him, Monk delves into each of their pasts, one of which hides a dreadful secret. Soon facing a series of deadly obstructions, Monk must choose between his own safety and the chance to solve the mystery—and to figure out where his men’s loyalty really lies.

Praise for Dark Tide Rising

“Perry makes cunning work of the plot, which raises issues of trust and loyalty while driving home a grim message about the vulnerability of women who entrust their fortunes to unscrupulous men.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“One of the most successful of prolific Perry’s recent Victorian melodramas. The opening chapters are appropriately portentous, the mystification is authentic, and if the final surprise isn’t exactly a shock, it’s so well-prepared that even readers who don’t gasp will nod in satisfaction.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Another deftly crafted gem of a suspense thriller by a master of the mystery genre . . .  a ‘must read.’ ”—Midwest Book Review

“Superb . . . [a] brilliant piece of historical fiction . . . No one writes Victorian-era stories quite like Perry.”—BookReporter

In this riveting new William Monk novel, Anne Perry delves into the diverse population of Victorian London, whose disparate communities force Monk to rethink his investigative techniques—lest he be caught in the crosshairs of violent bigotry.

In the course of his tenure with the Thames River Police, Commander Monk has yet to see a more gruesome crime scene: a Hungarian warehouse owner lies in the middle of his blood-sodden office, pierced through the chest with a bayonet and eerily surrounded by seventeen candles, their wicks dipped in blood. Suspecting the murder may be rooted in ethnic prejudice, Monk turns to London’s Hungarian community in search of clues but finds his inquiries stymied by its wary citizens and a language he doesn’t speak. Only with the help of a local pharmacist acting as translator can Monk hope to penetrate this tightly knit enclave, even as more of its members fall victim to identical brutal murders. But whoever the killer, or killers, may be—a secret society practicing ritual sacrifice, a madman on a spree, a British native targeting foreigners—they are well hidden among the city’s ever-growing populace.

With the able assistance of his wife—former battlefield nurse Hester, who herself is dealing with a traumatized war veteran who may be tangled up in the murders—Monk must combat distrust, hostility, and threats from the very people he seeks to protect. But as the body count grows, stirring ever greater fear and anger among the Hungarian émigrés, resistance to the police also increases. Racing time and the rising tide of terror all around him, Monk must be even more relentless than the mysterious killer, or the echoes of malice and murder will resound through London’s streets like a clarion of doom.

Praise for An Echo of Murder

“[Anne] Perry fashions a rich, if blood-spattered narrative from this chapter of history. As the murders [of Hungarians] continue, Monk and his clever wife, Hester . . . struggle to fathom the new climate of hatred. ‘I think it’s fear,’ Hester says. ‘It’s fear of ideas, things that aren’t the way you’re used to. Everyone you don’t understand because their language is different, their food, but above all their religion.’ How times haven’t changed.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Skillful . . . Perry smoothly intertwines themes—war’s lingering cost, tension around immigration and otherness—that challenge in both her period and our own.”—Publishers Weekly

Master of mystery and historical intrigue Anne Perry once again transports readers to the banks of the Thames in Victorian London for her thrilling new William Monk novel. In Revenge in a Cold River, Monk faces his darkest hour ever as he spars with a quarry hell-bent on vengeance.

When Commander Monk of the Thames River Police is called to investigate the drowning of an escaped prisoner, he’s forced to contend with customs officer McNab, who clearly bears a bitter grudge against him. But the reason is a mystery in itself. Monk’s memory loss—a secret he guards closely—leaves him vulnerable to repercussions from his missing past, especially his exploits overseas in the tumultuous Gold Rush days of San Francisco. And now McNab, as icy and unfathomable as the steel-gray Thames itself, appears intent on using whatever damning facts he can find to his advantage to ruin Monk’s future as an officer of the law.

As Monk explores the possibility of a conspiracy, McNab’s game of cat and mouse escalates, with veiled threats and cryptic insinuations. Snared in an unforeseen trap, a desperate Monk must turn to his wife, Hester, and friend and attorney Oliver Rathbone for help, as his life literally hangs in the balance.

With razor-edged suspense and shocking twists and turns, Revenge in a Cold River is Anne Perry at her most intense—and most satisfying.

Praise for Revenge in a Cold River

“Fascinating and addictive . . . Another strong historical mystery that is true in both culture and manners to its Victorian setting.”—New York Journal of Books

“Perry is a master storyteller whose writing encompasses rich detail and nuance. . . . [Revenge in a Cold River] is her best to date.”—The Star-Ledger

“The storytelling is dazzling, as it always is in a Perry novel.”—The New York Times Book Review 

Anne Perry, that incomparable novelist of life in Victorian England, has once again surpassed herself, with this twenty-first installment of her New York Times bestselling William Monk series. In Corridors of the Night, nurse Hester Monk and her husband, William, commander of the Thames River Police, do desperate battle with two obsessed scientists who in the name of healing have turned to homicide.
 
The monomaniacal Rand brothers—Magnus, a cunning doctor, and Hamilton, a genius chemist—are ruthless in their pursuit of a cure for what was then known as the fatal “white-blood disease.” In London’s Royal Naval Hospital annex, Hester is tending one of the brothers’ dying patients—wealthy Bryson Radnor—when she stumbles upon three weak, terrified young children, and learns to her horror that they’ve been secretly purchased and imprisoned by the Rands for experimental purposes.
 
But the Rand brothers are too close to a miracle cure to allow their experiments to be exposed. Before Hester can reveal the truth, she too becomes a prisoner. As Monk and his faithful friends—distinguished lawyer Oliver Rathbone and reformed brothel keeper Squeaky Robinson among them—scour London’s grimy streets and the beautiful English countryside searching for her, Hester’s time, as well as the children’s, is quickly draining away.
 
Taut with intrigue and laced with white-knuckled terror, Corridors of the Night is Anne Perry at her magnificent, unforgettable best.
 
Praise for Corridors of the Night
 
“[A] suspenseful, twisting narrative.”—Historical Novels Review
 
“Anne Perry has once again evocatively and meticulously conjured up Victorian London. . . . This is one of her best as she continues probing . . . the dark impulses that haunt all human souls.”—Providence Journal
           
“Pulls no punches and depicts Victorian London in all its corrupt glory.”—Bookreporter

Praise for Anne Perry and Her William Monk novels
 
Blood on the Water
 
“One of Ms. Perry’s most engrossing books . . . gallops to a dramatic conclusion.”—The Washington Times
 
Blind Justice
 
“[Perry’s] courtroom scenes have the realism of Scott Turow.”—Huntington News
 
A Sunless Sea
 
“Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries are marvels.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
Acceptable Loss
 
“Masterful storytelling and moving dialogue.”—The Star-Ledger
 
Execution Dock
 
“[An] engrossing page-turner . . . There’s no one better at using words to paint a scene and then fill it with sounds and smells than Anne Perry.”—The Boston Globe

As her New York Times bestselling novels always remind us, Anne Perry is a matchless guide to both the splendor and the shame of the British Empire at the height of its influence. In her twentieth William Monk mystery, she brings us to London’s grand Mayfair mansions, where the arrogant masters of the Western world hold sway—and to the teeming Thames waterfront, where one summer afternoon, Monk witnesses the horrifying explosion of the pleasure boat Princess Mary, which sends to their deaths nearly two hundred merrymakers.
 
The tragedy is no accident. As commander of the River Police, Monk should handle the case, but the investigation is turned over to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. An Egyptian man is swiftly caught, tried, and sentenced to die. But almost as quickly, Monk presents evidence that Habib Beshara, though a nasty piece of work, was elsewhere at the time of the blast. The investigation, now in complete disarray, is hastily turned over to Monk.
 
Is the crime connected with the soon-to-be-opened Suez Canal, which will enormously benefit wealthy British shipping companies? Or did all of those innocent people drown to ensure the death of just one? How did the bomber board the ship, and how did he manage to escape? Is he an anarchist or a madman?
 
Backed up by his astute wife, Hester, and his old reliable friend Oliver Rathbone, Monk vows to find answers—but instead finds himself treading the dangerous waters of international intrigue, his questions politely turned aside by a formidable array of the powerful and privileged. Events twist and turn like the Thames itself, leading to the shattering moment when Monk realizes, perhaps too late, that he is the next target.
 
Praise for Anne Perry and her William Monk novels
 
Blood on the Water
 
“[An] unfailingly rewarding series.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Riveting . . . one of Perry’s most engrossing books.”—The Washington Times
 
“Tension-filled . . . intricate and densely plotted . . . Victorian London comes alive.”—BookPage

Blind Justice
 
“Ranks among the best . . . Perry has written. Her courtroom scenes have the realism of Scott Turow.”—Huntington News
 
A Sunless Sea
 
“Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries are marvels.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
Acceptable Loss
 
“Masterful storytelling and moving dialogue.”—The Star-Ledger
 
Execution Dock
 
“[An] engrossing page-turner . . . There’s no one better at using words to paint a scene and then fill it with sounds and smells than Anne Perry.”—The Boston Globe
 
Dark Assassin
 
“Brilliant . . . a page-turning thriller . . . blending compelling plotting with superbly realized human emotion and exquisite period detail.”—Jeffery Deaver, author of Edge
 
The Shifting Tide
 
“The mysterious and dangerous waterfront world of London’s ‘longest street,’ the Thames, comes to life.”—South Florida Sun-Sentinel

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

For a generation, Anne Perry’s New York Times bestselling novels have invited readers to explore the brilliantly seductive heart of Victorian London, where great wealth and great evil live side by side, and great men sometimes make unfortunate choices.
 
In Blind Justice, Hester Monk, the wife of William Monk, commander of the Thames River Police, questions the finances of a London church whose members’ hard-earned charitable gifts appear to have ended up in the pocket of charismatic preacher Abel Taft, paying for his fine home and the stylish outfits of his wife and daughters.
 
Taft is accused of extortion, and brilliant barrister Oliver Rathbone, newly appointed a judge, is chosen to preside over his trial. It seems clear that Taft is indeed guilty. However, at the last second, the defense produces a witness who completely undermines the charges. Then Rathbone makes a well-meaning but reckless move that could ruin his career, his reputation, and his life.
 
Blind Justice presents a rich and lively panorama of London life, from the teeming Thames docks to the wealthy West End, while unfolding a magnificent courtroom drama. And while justice, law, and morality hang in the balance, Hester and Monk race to save their distinguished friend Rathbone from disgrace. The incomparable art of Anne Perry grips us fast until the final, unforgettable scene.

Praise for Blind Justice
 
“A staggering achievement . . . Perry’s command of plot and prose shines.”—Bookreporter
 
“Ranks among the best [Anne] Perry has written. Her courtroom scenes have the realism of Scott Turow.”—Huntington News
 
“Gripping . . . Those who love Victorian England will relish Ms. Perry’s presentation of period details. Her mastery of this time and place gives credence to the characters’ moral and legal struggles.”—New York Journal of Books
 
Praise for Anne Perry and her Wiliam Monk novels
 
A Sunless Sea
 
“Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries are marvels.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
Acceptable Loss
 
“Masterful storytelling and moving dialogue.”—The Star-Ledger
 
Execution Dock
 
“[An] engrossing page-turner . . . There’s no one better at using words to paint a scene and then fill it with sounds and smells than Anne Perry.”—The Boston Globe
 
Dark Assassin
 
“Brilliant . . . a page-turning thriller . . . blending compelling plotting with superbly realized human emotion and exquisite period detail.”—Jeffery Deaver, author of Edge
 
The Shifting Tide
 
“The mysterious and dangerous waterfront world of London’s ‘longest street,’ the Thames, comes to life.”—South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Anne Perry’s spellbinding Victorian mysteries, especially those featuring William Monk, have enthralled readers for a generation. The Plain Dealer calls Monk “a marvelously dark, brooding creation”—and, true to form, this masterpiece is as deceptively deep and twisty as the Thames.
 
As commander of the River Police, Monk is accustomed to violent death, but the mutilated female body found on Limehouse Pier one chilly December morning moves him with horror and pity. The victim’s name is Zenia Gadney. Her waterfront neighbors can tell him little—only that the same unknown gentleman had visited her once a month for many years. She must be a prostitute, but—described as quiet and kempt—she doesn’t appear to be a fallen woman.
 
What sinister secrets could have made poor Zenia worth killing? And why does the government keep interfering in Monk’s investigation?
 
While the public cries out for blood, Monk, his spirited wife, Hester, and their brilliant barrister friend, Oliver Rathbone, search for answers. From dank waterfront alleys to London’s fabulously wealthy West End, the three trail an ice-blooded murderer toward the unbelievable, possibly unprovable truth—and ultimately engage their adversaries in an electric courtroom duel. But unless they can work a miracle, a monumental evil will go unpunished and an innocent person will hang.
 
Anne Perry has never worn her literary colors with greater distinction than in A Sunless Sea, a heart-pounding novel of intrigue and suspense in which Monk is driven to make the hardest decision of his life.

Includes an excerpt from Anne Perry’s next William Monk novel, Blind Justice

Praise for A Sunless Sea
 
“Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries are marvels.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Unexpected twists and revelations keep the plot humming with typical Anne Perry deception and wit.”—Bookreporter
 
“Much more than a whodunit, this book [is] possibly the author’s best yet.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Anne Perry’s seventeenth William Monk novel, now in paperback, is a mesmerizing masterpiece of innocence and evil on London’s docks, a welcome addition to this successful and beloved series.
 
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
 
On a London riverbank, when the body of small-time crook Mickey Parfitt washes up with the tide, no one grieves. But William Monk, commander of the River Police, is puzzled by the murder weapon: an elegant scarf whose original owner was obviously a man of substance. Dockside informers lead Monk to a floating palace of corruption on the Thames managed by Parfitt, where a band of half-starved boys is held captive for men willing to pay a high price for midnight pleasures. Though Monk and his fearless wife, Hester, would gladly reward Parfitt’s killer, duty leads them in another direction—to an unresolved crime, to a deadly confrontation with some of the empire’s most respected men, and ultimately to a courtroom showdown with Monk’s old friend, Oliver Rathbone, in a trial of nearly unbearable tension and suspense.
 
“Masterful storytelling . . . [the] best in the series to date.”—The Star-Ledger

On the bustling docks along the River Thames, Great Britain’s merchant ships unload the treasures of the world. And here, in dank and sinister alleys, sex merchants ply their lucrative trade. The dreaded kingpin of this dark realm is Jericho Phillips, who seems far beyond the reach of the law. But when thirteen-year-old Fig is found with his throat cut, Commander William Monk of the River Police swears that Phillips will hang for this abomination. Monk’s wife, Hester, draws a highly unusual guerrilla force to her husband’s cause—a canny ratcatcher, a retired brothel keeper, a fearless street urchin, and a rebellious society lady. To one as criminally minded as Phillips, these folks are mere mosquitoes, to be sure. But as he will soon discover, some mosquitoes can have a deadly sting.

On a patrol boat near Waterloo Bridge, police superintendent William Monk notices a young couple engaged in an intense discussion. Seconds later, the two plunge to their deaths in the icy waters of the Thames. Was it an accident, a suicide, or a murder? Ever the investigator, Monk learns that the woman, Mary Havilland, had planned to marry the fair-haired man who shared her fate. He also discovers that Mary’s father had recently died in a supposed suicide. But Mary’s friends share their own darks suspicions with Monk, who now faces the mysteries surrounding three deaths. Aided by his intrepid wife, Hester, Monk searches for answers. From luxurious drawing rooms where powerful men hatch their unscrupulous plots, to the sewers beneath the city where poor folk fight crippling poverty, Monk must connect the clues before death strikes again.

“Engrossing . . . The mysterious and dangerous waterfront world of London’s ‘longest street,’ the Thames, comes to life.”—South Florida Sun-Sentinel

William Monk knows London’s streets like the back of his hand. But the river Thames and its teeming docks—where wharf rats and night plunderers ply their trades—is unknown territory. Only Monk’s dire need for work 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. But why didn’t Louvain report the ivory theft directly to the River Police? Another mystery is the appearance of a desperately ill woman who Louvain claims is the discarded mistress of an old friend. Is she connected to the theft, or to something much darker? As Monk endeavors to solve these riddles, he can’t imagine the trap that will soon so fatefully ensnare him.

Praise for The Shifting Tide

“With her visionary sensibility, Anne Perry is the master of the ‘you are there’ school of hist-myst storytelling. . . . [Here are] scenes that could have come out of Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend.”—The New York Times Book Review

“As always, Perry uses her characters and story to comment on ethical issues that remain as relevant today as they were in Victorian times.”—Publishers Weekly

“No one writes more elegantly than Perry, nor better conjures up the rich and colorful tapestry of London in the Victorian era.”—The Plain Dealer

“Among the best [of the Monk books] . . . This one has all Perry’s trademark atmosphere.”—The Globe and Mail 

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.

Two beautiful women have been found strangled in the studio of a well-known London artist. To investigator William Monk and his wife, Hester, the murders are a nightmare. One of the victims is the wife of Hester’s cherished colleague, surgeon Dr. Kristian Beck, a Viennese émigré who becomes the prime suspect. With an intensity born of desperation, the Monks seek evidence that will save Dr. Beck from the hangman. From London’s sinister slums to the crowded coffeehouses of Vienna, where embers of the revolution still burn in the hearts of freedom-loving men and women, Hester and Monk seek to penetrate not only the mystery of Elissa Beck’s death but the riddle of her life.

The year is 1861. The American Civil War has just begun, and London arms dealer Daniel Alberton is becoming a very wealthy man. His quiet dinner party seems remote indeed from the passions rending America. Yet investigator William Monk and his bride, Hester, sense growing tensions and barely concealed violence. For two of the guests are Americans, each vying to buy Alberton’s armaments. Soon Monk and Hester’s forebodings are fulfilled as one member of the party is brutally murdered and two others disappear— along with Alberton’s entire inventory of weapons. As Monk and Hester track the man they believe to be the murderer all the way to Washington, D.C., and the bloody battlefield at Manassas, Slaves of Obsession twists and turns like a powder-keg fuse and holds the reader breathless and spellbound.

A young bridegroom enlists private investigator William Monk to track down his fiancée, Miriam Gardiner, who disappeared suddenly from a party at a luxurious Bayswater mansion. Monk soon finds the coach in which Miriam fled and, nearby, the murdered body of the coachman, but there is no trace of the young passenger. What strange compulsion could have driven the beautiful widow to abandon the prospect of a loving marriage and financial abundance? Monk and clever nurse Hester Latterly, themselves now newlyweds, desperately pursue the elusive truth—and an unknown killer whose malign brilliance they have scarcely begun to fathom.