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A Sunless Sea A William Monk Novel Anne Perry 9780345510648 Books

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A Sunless Sea A William Monk Novel Anne Perry 9780345510648 Books

I truly appreciate the title of this book for several reasons. First, it comes from Kublai Khan, a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was a notorious opium eater and according to legend wrote this upon awakening from an opium dream. "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan A stately pleasure dome decree, Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea." Second, one could visualize opium addicts as drowning in a sea without the sun of hope to guide them to shore.

A new Monk novel is always a joy to receive. I find the trio of Monk, his wife Hester, and the eminent barrister Oliver Rathbone to be one of the best in all of detective fiction. The marriage of Monk and Hester is a partnership in every sense of the word; the deep love they feel for each other is obvious, and, although it would seem they are fated not to have a child of their own, their foster son Scruff adds a dimension to it that makes me happy for them. I did miss Sir Oliver's father, who is a voice of wisdom & reality for his son and is a very likeable character. Oliver is suffering the death of his marriage; I felt sad for him even while realizing that Margaret was not really the wife he needed.

Inspector Runcorn, who was for a while Monk's friend & then his nemesis, is back; he has changed greatly, largely due to finding happiness with the lovely Melisande. He works with Monk and Rathbone while Hester goes off on her own investigation; this was reminiscent of many of the Pitt & Charlotte books.

The heroine is a widow who is accused of a murder followed by a ghastly mutilation of the body. Her husband had died, supposedly a suicide, two months prior to this. She is a brave and gallant woman who is willing to sacrifice herself for the love of her husband. Several of the characters Monk and Hester meet along the way are memorable, including a nurse who tends the wounded sailors and dockworkers, a doctor who was a former mentor of Hester's, and another doctor whose addiction to opium following a most painful injury has ruined his life.

Rathbone has an uphill battle in the courtroom against a prosecutor who truly believes in the guilt of the accused and a judge who does not appear to be as impartial as he should be. One character must compromise his moral beliefs in the battle for justice.

This was a book that only bedtime allowed me to put down. An outstanding job by my favorite author.


Tags : A Sunless Sea: A William Monk Novel [Anne Perry] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Anne Perry’s spellbinding Victorian mysteries, especially those featuring William Monk, have enthralled readers for a generation. The Plain Dealer</i> calls Monk “a marvelously dark,Anne Perry,A Sunless Sea: A William Monk Novel,Ballantine Books,034551064X,Monk, William (Fictitious character);Fiction.,Murder;Investigation;Fiction.,Private investigators;England;London;Fiction.,ENGLISH MYSTERY & SUSPENSE FICTION,England,Fiction,Fiction - Mystery Detective,Fiction Historical,Fiction Mystery & Detective Historical,Fiction Mystery & Detective Traditional,Fiction-Mystery & Detective,GENERAL,General Adult,Great BritainBritish Isles,Investigation,London,Monk, William (Fictitious character),Monograph Series, any,Murder,Mystery & Detective - Historical,Mystery & Detective - Traditional British,MysterySuspense,PERRY, ANNE - PROSE & CRITICISM,Private investigators,Private investigators;England;London;Fiction.,United States,Fiction Historical,Fiction Mystery & Detective Historical,Fiction Mystery & Detective Traditional,Mystery & Detective - Historical,Mystery & Detective - Traditional British,Fiction - Mystery Detective,England,Investigation,London,Monk, William (Fictitious character),Murder,Private investigators,English Mystery & Suspense Fiction,Fiction,MysterySuspense

A Sunless Sea A William Monk Novel Anne Perry 9780345510648 Books Reviews

I agree with the other reviews that this book in the Monk series was padded with repetitive material, and stretched credibility on the legal aspects of the case. Worse, there were glaring copy error. One character's name changes repeatedly through out the book - is her name Agnes or Agatha? And William Gladstone gets a promotion from Chancellor of the Exchequer to Prime Minister in a page and a half - quite the political feat. I've noticed this happening in other lengthy series featuring the same characters - there's a tipping point where the books become repetitive, predictable, and dull. (The only writers I've found who haven't done this are Agatha Christie and Elizabeth Peters). This one really reads like she's calling it in, and makes me wonder whether to continue with the series.
Anne Perry masterfully links the name of this book, A Sunless Sea, with the poem Kubla Kahn written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797 as she did with The Sins of the Wolf and Dante's Inferno. Coleridge was a known opium user in England when the drug was totally unregulated which leads us to the main focus of this book.

As opium addiction is described by the author, the image of a sunless sea is a place where there is no light--only darkness, no hope--only despair, and no life--only death.

The book opens with Monk, commander of the Thames River Police at Wapping Station, and Orme, his right-hand man, rowing together in a boat on the river about 20 feet from the Limehouse Pier, when they hear a blood-curdling scream coming from someone standing on the pier. As they dock the boat and run up the stairs, the person points to what looks like "a heap of rubbage" but is soon found to be the body of a woman who has been murdered and disemboweled. As Monk and Orme begin their investigation to determine who the woman was, they assume maybe she was a prostitute who put herself in harms way. As they search a neighborhood "about a quarter of a mile from the river" they soon discover her name is Zenia Gadney.

All who knew of Zenia say she lived a quiet life with no visitors except for one man who came only once a month but hadn't been around for two months. No one seems to know who he is. Monk deduces that the man probably comes by hansom cab which turns out to be the case. With a little detective work, he learns the man is Dr. Joel Lambourn. When he visits the Lambourn home, the beautiful Dinah, his wife, tells Monk her husband is two-months dead, ruled a suicide by the police, but she doesn't believe it. She also says she knew about her husband and Zenia for many years.

The mystery deepens when Monk discovers that Dr. Lambourn had written a report for the government on the dangerous unregulated use of opium as a reference for passage of a proposed Pharmacy Act regulating its use. The report was rejected and destroyed by those he gave it to, including his brother-in-law, Barclay Herne, whose wife was the sister of Dr. Lambourn. The police ruled that Dr. Lambourn's despair and embarrassment at the rejection of his work led him to commit suicide.

But, who killed Zenia and what was her connection to Dr. Lambourn? Monk has found the only person with knowledge, access, and motive is Dinah Lambourn who is shortly arrested for the murder. She asks Monk if he will request that Oliver Rathbone represent her, which Oliver agrees to even though he has no evidence that she didn't do it. The courtroom drama plays an important part in this story. The judge, the prosecutor, and the witnesses all pull the reader toward the anticipated conclusion.

Britain finally passed the Opium Act in 1878.
I truly appreciate the title of this book for several reasons. First, it comes from Kublai Khan, a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was a notorious opium eater and according to legend wrote this upon awakening from an opium dream. "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan A stately pleasure dome decree, Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea." Second, one could visualize opium addicts as drowning in a sea without the sun of hope to guide them to shore.

A new Monk novel is always a joy to receive. I find the trio of Monk, his wife Hester, and the eminent barrister Oliver Rathbone to be one of the best in all of detective fiction. The marriage of Monk and Hester is a partnership in every sense of the word; the deep love they feel for each other is obvious, and, although it would seem they are fated not to have a child of their own, their foster son Scruff adds a dimension to it that makes me happy for them. I did miss Sir Oliver's father, who is a voice of wisdom & reality for his son and is a very likeable character. Oliver is suffering the death of his marriage; I felt sad for him even while realizing that Margaret was not really the wife he needed.

Inspector Runcorn, who was for a while Monk's friend & then his nemesis, is back; he has changed greatly, largely due to finding happiness with the lovely Melisande. He works with Monk and Rathbone while Hester goes off on her own investigation; this was reminiscent of many of the Pitt & Charlotte books.

The heroine is a widow who is accused of a murder followed by a ghastly mutilation of the body. Her husband had died, supposedly a suicide, two months prior to this. She is a brave and gallant woman who is willing to sacrifice herself for the love of her husband. Several of the characters Monk and Hester meet along the way are memorable, including a nurse who tends the wounded sailors and dockworkers, a doctor who was a former mentor of Hester's, and another doctor whose addiction to opium following a most painful injury has ruined his life.

Rathbone has an uphill battle in the courtroom against a prosecutor who truly believes in the guilt of the accused and a judge who does not appear to be as impartial as he should be. One character must compromise his moral beliefs in the battle for justice.

This was a book that only bedtime allowed me to put down. An outstanding job by my favorite author.