A Breach of Promise

A Breach of Promise by Anne Perry.

Hardcover: 374 pages
Publisher: Fawcett;(September 14, 1998)
ISBN-10: 9780449908495



Amazon Review:

When Anne Perry sets her magic pen to paper, Victorian England awakens from her long sleep to vibrant, teeming life. Firelight flickers in luxurious withdrawing rooms. Ambitious ladies gossip and scheme. Horse-drawn carriages clatter over cobblestones while cries of flower sellers and newsboys ring out in crowded streets. In this magnificent new novel featuring investigator William Monk, however, it is the breathless hush of a London courtroom that first holds readers enthralled.

The plaintiffs in a sensational breach of promise suit are wealthy social climbers Barton and Delphine Lambert, suing on behalf of their beautiful daughter, Zillah. The defendant is Zillah's alleged fiancé, brilliant young architect Killian Melville, who adamantly declares that he will not, cannot, marry her. Not even to his baffled counsel, distinguished barrister Sir Oliver Rathbone, will Killian explain his rejection of rich and charming Zillah.

Utterly baffled, Rathbone turns for help to his old comrades in crime--Monk, the private investigator who knows his city like the back of his hand, and fearless nurse Hester Latterly. But even as they scout London for clues, from Mayfair to sordid Devil's Acre, the case suddenly and tragically ends. An outcome that no one--except a ruthless murderer--could have foreseen.

Stripping away the pretty masks that conceal society's darkest transgressions, Anne Perry unflinchingly exposes the human heart's deepest hiding places--and creates the most mesmerizing courtroom drama of her distinguished career.

Oh my!  These  Books just keep getting better and better!!

I loved this one!  One mystery turns into two, turns into three!  Perry, has created 3 really unique and fabulous characters to help tell her stories. Monk is one of a kind and a great detective.  Hester is the infallible Nurse, and Sir Oliver Rathbone is a barrister of finest quality... great casting for her books!

I really can't say anything much, I wouldn't want to give anything away should you want to read any of this series..I just have to say that it seems the more books she writes using these characters the better her stories get!  'Nuff said.....

The Silent Cry

The  Silent Cry by Anne Perry.
Hardcover: 361 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books;(October 7, 1997)
ISBN-10: 0449908488

Amazon.com Review

Readers of Anne Perry's series of Victorian murder mysteries know that her novels are as much social histories as crime stories. She pens her tales with an acute eye for period detail and a strong moral outrage at the hypocrisies and miseries of life in 19th-century England. Mysteries featuring Inspector Thomas Pitt and his upper-class wife, Charlotte, explore the life of the middle class and aristocracy; those that center on William Monk illuminate the back alleys and pauper's hospitals of England's lower classes. In The Silent Cry, Monk and his friend Hester Latterly, an independent young woman inured to life's horrors by her nursing service during the Crimean War, investigate the murder of prostitutes in Seven Dials. As always, Perry's grim landscape of tenements, sweatshops, and boozing kens becomes almost as much a character as the living people who inhabit them, while Monk and Hester's rebellious intelligence and unconventionality keep us coming back for more.
 
Yet, another really good Mystery for Monk by Anne Perry!

This one began a tad slow (for me) but it was long before it picked up and with each time I sit down to read it was going faster and faster!   Towards the end I thought I had it figured out and of course Anne Perry had a few last minutes twists!  But I did  have part of it right!! 

This series is a pleasant surprise to me, since I don't generally read authors that are so prolific as they generally get into a set routine and after a bit are no longer good stories.  Well I've read 8 of the Monk series so far and am still enjoyed her mysteries and finding out about Monk!!

I have a few more of her books here, and although I occasionally slip a different book in between I will have no trouble reading the rest that I  have!

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

Paperback: 290 pages
Publisher: Dial Press (May 5, 2009)
ISBN-10: 1448730686


Amazon Review:

“I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb. . . .

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.
Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.
 I needed a short bread from Monk!  But I am going right back to him starting today  :)
I love this book!  It is the third time I have read it over the years. 

The book is written in the form of letters from Guernsey to Juliet, a book writer. You get the feeling of looking into others lives during a time no one should have to go through.  By mid book, you are totally invested in the people of the Island and feel as if you have lived their lives with them.

I don't want to say a lot... just... if you read this book I doubt you will be disappointed.

Cain His Brother by Anne Perry.

Hardcover: 390 pages
Publisher: Fawcett;(September 19, 1995)
ISBN-10: 044990847X



Victoria's London was the queen of the universe, a dazzling metropolis from whose magnificent mansions and discreetly luxurious clubs flowed the strategies that built the greatest empire ever known. Meanwhile the city's poor suffered and died in hopeless obscurity. Inspector William Monk knows his city's best and its worst--or so he believes until the day when charming Genevieve Stonefield comes to plead with him to find her missing husband. 

In his family life, Angus Stonefield had been gentle and loving; in business, a man of probity; and in his relationship with his twin brother, Caleb, a virtual saint. Now he is missing, and it appears more than possible that Caleb--a creature long since abandoned to depravity--has murdered him. 

And so Monk puts himself into the missing man's shoes, searching in Stonefield's comfortable home, his prospering business, his favorite haunts, and, finally, the city's dangerous, fever-ridden slums for clues to Angus's fate and his vicious brother's whereabouts. Slowly, Monk inches toward the truth--and also, unwittingly, toward the destruction of his good name and livelihood.... 

Cain His Brother builds from one astonishment to another until, in a transfixed courtroom, fate, or perhaps the devil, plays with men's lives and laughs a last mad laugh. Never before has Anne Perry penetrated so deeply into the darkness of the human heart and into a past that rises up to haunt us with its tragic ironies.

This one I really liked alot! I am getting to know many of the "families" that get involved with Monk's mysteries! 

Since I am not reading each and every one in succession sometimes Monk is Married and sometimes he is not ! lol.  But with each book one learns more and more of the main characters personalities .

I actually had my suspicions as to how this would end and (for a change) I was right ! lol.  But it was really well written as to how you will find out how it was figured out! 

Good book! (Big thank you to Kris's mom for sending it to me!!)