Reviewed By Liz

Anne Perry has a new book out in hardcover this month.

At Some Disputed Barricade
By Anne Perry
A World War I Mystery

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books (March 13, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0345456580

Available at Amazon

Anne Perry’s Dark Assassin was also released in Mass Market paperback in February.

Dark Assassin
By Anne Perry
A William Monk Novel

Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (2/27/07)
ISBN-10: 0345469305

Available at Amazon

In the first few pages of this book, William Monk watches a man and a woman fall off Waterloo Bridge to their deaths. The tantalizing question – murder, suicide, or accident? Monk, his new River Police staff, his wife Hester, his usual assorted assistants, and even his old nemesis Runcorn all work together in this book to try to find the solution.

This large cast of characters not only worries at the question of the pair on the bridge, they then move on to the larger reform-minded goal of workplace safety. In this case, they are concerned about the workers constructing the new London sewer system, which is desperately needed to avoid another outbreak of disease in the city of 3 million people.

Did I guess it? No. I thought the ending would go in a different direction. And I must say that I was a little disappointed with the ending. It seemed a little rushed and there were some important details that I didn’t feel were adequately explained.

Worth reading? Yes. As usual, Perry has no problem enveloping the reader in the Victorian era. We walk along the streets in search of pork pie and hot chestnut vendors and, when Monk is chilled from working on the river in his new job, I find myself making tea to warm up, too. The suspension of disbelief factor in Perry’s series is low – her details seem accurate and she doesn’t glamorize the time period. When you read her books you see and feel the poverty, dirt, hunger, social constraints, and the desperate need for reform and change that her characters try to bring about. Her books don’t leave you feeling uplifted at the end, but as if you have won some small moral victory.

Dark Assassin by Anne Perry (Amazon.com)

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006