The Shifting Tide: A William Monk Novel (William Monk Novels)
by Anne Perry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anne PerryEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-03-29
ISBN: 0345440102
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of The Shifting Tide: A William Monk Novel (William Monk Novels)
Book Review: One of the best in this long-running series
Summary: 4 Stars
This one is something of a departure in the long-running series about William Monk, private investigator in mid-Victorian London, and his wife, Hester, ex-Crimean nurse and avid social activist. Monk is equally familiar with the back streets and opium dens of the underworld and with the drawing rooms of Society, but the Thames is another whole world, a very tough and dangerous one, with which he has almost no experience. But economic times are tough, so he accepts a job from Clement Louvain to locate a shipment of ivory tusks stolen off one of his ships just returned from an African voyage. One of the crew was apparently killed during the theft, but Louvain wants his cargo back before he'll let Monk take the murder to the police. And, of course, Monk solves the mystery and locates the ivory -- and does it all by the halfway point in the narrative. And then things turn ugly. Hester, who has been running a charitable shelter for injured, abused, or ill poor women and prostitutes in a bad part of town, discovers that the woman Louvain brought in, and whose care he has paid for, has been murdered -- but it almost doesn't matter because she was dying of bubonic plague in any case. With the help of a few local men who stand guard and bring supplies, and a handful of very strong women who help her nurse the sick, Hester closes up the clinic from the inside, to contain the plague from spreading and possibly killing off half of Europe again. The pestilence almost certainly arrived on Louvain's ship and Monk has to try to locate the other crew members, who may also be infected. Oliver Rathbone contribution in the courtroom is minimal this time around. It's all Hester's story. It's a harrowing tale and Perry tells it very effectively.
Summary of The Shifting Tide: A William Monk Novel (William Monk Novels)
In her new masterpiece featuring private inquiry agent William Monk, New York Times bestselling novelist Anne Perry displays her prodigious writing talent. With insight, compassion, and a portraitist's genius, Perry illuminates the shifting tide of emotions encompassing Queen Victoria's London and the people who live there-aristocrats, brothel owners, thieves, Dickensian ruffians, and their evil keepers. She takes us through dangerous backstreets where the poor eke out their humble livings, and into the mansions of the rich, safe and secure in their privileged lives. Or so they believe. . . .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 Hester's 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.
In this magnificent novel, Anne Perry holds the reader spellbound, as Monk and Hester struggle to save themselves and their world from a catastrophe whose dimensions they can scarcely measure.
From the Hardcover edition.
Commissioned to find the precious cargo of ivory stolen by river thieves from the hold of Clement Louvain's ocean-going schooner, private enquiry agent William Monk is intrigued by his new surroundings. The waterfront of the River Thames is a world unto itself, but without the help of the famed River Police, Monk hardly stands a chance of retrieving the ivory or tracking down the murderous men who killed an innocent crew member while robbing Louvain's ship. Not so coincidentally, Monk's wife Hester, who operates a shelter for sick and injured women of the streets, discovers that a woman with a mysterious connection to Louvain may hold the key to the missing ivory as well as many more deaths aboard his ship than the one Monk knows about. Perry's trademarked plotting, characterization, and verisimilitude in recreating Victorian London gleam brilliantly in this well-crafted historical mystery. --Jane Adams
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