Krishna
We have reviewed many of Anne Perry’s books earlier in this forum. You may remember that she writes mystery stories but set in Victorian era. (Examples include A Breach of Promise and Cain His Brother, among others
Let us look at the story. In these kind of books, the only way to review is to look at the plot minus the ‘who did it?’ ending. That is what we will now do. This features one of her routine detectives, Monk.
Lucius Stourbridge comes to see Monk. Monk is back from a honeymoon with Hester.
In many of the earlier books, Hester was caught in a love triangle between Monk and Oliver Rathbone, a brilliant and compassionate lawyer, and finally, in a previous book, she chose Monk and agreed to marry him. Also as I have already pointed out, the stories move the life of Monk and other characters through a series of books, which is nice if you read them all, hopefully in sequence!
Lucius was betrothed to Miriam, the lovely lady (She was Mrs Gardiner, so you guess that she has been widowed before deciding to marry Lucius) and she has disappeared. Hester in the meanwhile is fighting to improve conditions in a hospital (she realizes that training of nurses is required to improve care and install sanitary procedures, but faces resistance at every turn). On top of everything, she finds that medicines are being stolen too. Callanda Divot, the rich aristocrat with a benevolent nature and is a friend of Hester and Monk, is also with her there.
Monk finds that the coachman, who also disappeared with Miriam, was found murdered in a different police precinct and the coach and horses were not stolen. Why was he murdered if not for money? And where is Miriam?
Robb, the superintendent in that precinct is young but seems extremely able.
In his inquiries, Monk learns that Miriam was adopted as a child, wandering in the streets and that the adoptive mother lives close to where the coachman was murdered and Miriam disappeared.
He finally tracks Miriam down before Robb and learns nothing from her, except a statement that she cannot tell him anything. He also notices her visual great distress. Mariam is arrested by Robb.
In the meanwhile, Robb’s very sick dad and Hester form a bond.
Miriam refuses to help in her own defense and keeps a fierce silence, resigned to her fate.
When the case is closed, Lucius comes to Monk again to find the truth. When they discover that Mariam’s mother (who adopted Mariam) was dispensing medicines to the poor from the hospital (a kindly act but a crime) they conclude that the coachman was blackmailing her and then arrest the mother. Mariam is released into the custody of Stourbridges but seems strangely petrified to go with them.
Hester decides to continue the crime of smuggling drugs to patients who need them, even at a danger to her of going to jail, and one of them is Robb’s own father! She also confirms from Mariam’s adopted mother, who is now in jail for the murder, that the coachman was indeed blackmailing her. Seems an open and shut case, especially she is not interested even in defending herself against the charges or even explain what she knows.
But when Verona Stourbridge, the mother of Lucius is murdered in her own house by what seems to be a family member in exact same way as the coach driver while the nurse was still in prison, the case takes a bizarre turn and Robb invites Monk to help him.
When Miriam is also arrested, Monk and Hester reach out to Oliver Rathbone for legal help.
He tries to talk to both Miriam and her mother with no avail.
Monk and Robb are puzzled : How did the coachman know about the theft of the medicines to blackmail Miriam’s mother??
Finally, to save Miriam, Cora decides to tell how she found Miriam all those years ago, in court. She reveals the bombshell about Miriam, how she arrived and her precise condition of arrival.
When they claim that there was a woman murdered all those years ago by the killer, who is revealed at this point, Hester goes with Robb to find the body and does find it, based on the descriptions of the place given.
From there the mystery unravels quickly and the ending is a bit sudden in my view, where everything becomes known together and there is a sense of hurried completion but still a fairly good book to read.
6/10
– – Krishna