The Silent Cry (William Monk Novels) [Mass Market Paperback]

Anne Perry (Author)

Book Description

Series: William Monk Novels | Publication Date: July 29, 1998

Deep in London's dangerous slums, Victorians transacted their most secret and shameful business. For a price, a man could procure whatever he wanted, but it happened now and then that the price he paid was his life.

Now, in sunless Water Lane, respected solicitor Leighton Duff lies dead, kicked and beaten to death. Beside him lies the barely living body of his son, Rhys. The police cannot fathom these brutal assaults until shrewd investigator William Monk uncovers a connection between them and a series of rapes and beatings of local prostitutes. Then, shockingly, it begins to appear that young Rhys may have killed his own father. . . .

Editorial Reviews

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Prolific murder-mystery writer Perry has evaded the scientific precision of modern forensic fact-finding by weaving current-day issues and characters into a richly detailed Victorian-era milieu. One man is found murdered and another on the edge of death in the notorious London slum called St. Giles. Although it looks as if they may have engaged in a mortal fight, they are in fact father and son from a well-to-do family. Later, links develop between these men and a series of violent rapes of prostitutes. Hester Latterly, nurse and protector of the surviving son, Rhys, counterbalances detective William Monk in their mutual pursuit of the truth. By the novel's end, revelations of corruption and depravity break through the severe conventions of upper-class Victorian prudery in a dramatic courtroom scene. Perry followers and others will enjoy this new addition. Highly recommended.?Michelle Foyt, Fairfield P.L., Ct.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Ivy Books (July 29, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804117934
• ISBN-13: 978-0804117937
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.9 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #402,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Authors, A-Z > ( P ) > Perry, Anne

More About the Author

Anne Perry is the bestselling author of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England: the William Monk novels, including Dark Assassin and The Shifting Tide, and the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels, including The Cater Street Hangman, Calandar Square, Buckingham Palace Gardens and Long Spoon Lane. She is also the author of the World War I novels No Graves As Yet, Shoulder the Sky, Angels in the Gloom, At Some Disputed Barricade, and We Shall Not Sleep, as well as six holiday novels, most recently A Christmas Grace. Anne Perry lives in Scotland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great, great mystery., May 13, 2000

By 

Sharon Wylie (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Silent Cry (William Monk Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

I read a LOT of mysteries, and the outcome of this one left me stunned. When you read a mystery, you hope to be surprised by the resolution, and this one rates with the best of Agatha Christie.

If you've never read Anne Perry, this one showcases all that she's capable of.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the Monk series, October 22, 1997

By 

Susan M. Hagadorn (Ypsilanti, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Silent Cry (William Monk Novels) (Hardcover)

The Silent Cry is the best so far in Perry's Monk series. The mystery is genuinely mysterious, the period color superb, the characters well-developed and fully realized. The nurse Hester Latterly, Monk himself, and the other returning characters are as engaging and realistic as ever, and Perry's dialogue, as always, sounds like real Victorian people having real Victorian conversations. The book is slightly flawed by some minor incononsistencies in the plot, mostly having to do with the injuries to Rhys Duff, but these are not very troubling. The picture Perry paints of Victorian London and the social issues and manners of the time would make the book worth reading even if it weren't an outstanding mystery.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Believable, compelling and enthralling., October 24, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Silent Cry (William Monk Novels) (Hardcover)

Anne Perry is one of my favorite authors and this is one of her best books. By now, I am more than ready for her hero, Inspector William Monk, to make his mind up about his feelings for Hester Latterly, an independent, non-conformist, and highly likeable nurse who challenges all of Monk's ideas of what (or whom) constitutes the "perfect" woman. Ms. Perry weaves this problem (for Monk anyway) throughout the story and finally provides us hopeless (hopeful?) romantics with a few sops of encouragement. All of the supporting characters are finely and wonderfully drawn (likeable or not) and the attention to detail of the historical period is unmatched. Well worth anyone's time.