Customer Reviews

Slaves of Obsession (William Monk Novels)

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

While England remains at peace, across the Atlantic, the first major battle of the Civil War occurs. Agents from the opposing forces try to buy arms from Daniel Alberton. When William and Hester Monk meet Daniel, his wife Judith, and their daughter Merrit, Lyman Breeland demands the arms merchant sell to the Union while Philo Trace wants the weapons to go to the Confederacy.

Alberton does not favor one side over the other, but will honor the deal he made with Trace. Merrit loves Lyman, who she sees as a hero. Not long afterward, Alberton and two of his men die and the guns and ammo are missing. Merrit and the Union soldier travel to America with evidence showing that she and her suitor committed the crimes. Judith Alberton asks the Monks to find her daughter and return her to England. As the Monks work on the case, they begin to wonder who are the victims and who are the criminals?

Anne Perry always writes a memorable Victorian mystery that leaves her myriad of fans shouting masterpiece. The glimpse of the American Civil War from the British side is as enlightening as much as observing the English justice system at work. SLAVES OF OBSESSION is constructed in such a way so as to the make the mystery seem obvious until the protagonists begin to dig for the truth. The novel turns into a personal coup for the author showing yet again the degree of talent and confidence Ms. Perry has.

Harriet Klausner

Anne Perry's "Slaves of Obsession" starts out with a great premise: A British businessman is faced with the choice of selling arms to two men, one a member of the Union forces during the American Civil War, and the other a man with loyalties to the Confederacy. When the businessman is murdered, the Northerner flees to America with the guns...and the businessman's daughter. But did he kill the businessman? Monk and Hester are up to the task of sorting the whole thing out...or are they?

I found the first third of the book to be very exciting, especially the scenes that occur in America. Monk, for the first time, now becomes graphically aware of what Hester has seen and experienced as he watches the brutal battles of the Civil War. (Monk also learns more about his forgotten past in this volume.) As Monk and Hester search for answers in America, they learn a lot about themselves.

Sadly, after Monk and Hester arrive back to England, the book really drags down. Perry just keeps hammering the same clues over and over again until the reader finally doesn't care who is exposed as the murderer (although it's fairly easy to figure out). Monk's wit and intellect are usually sharp as a tack, but he really seems slow-witted in figuring out what's going on in this story. After her return from America, Hester might as well change the sheets on beds in hospital rooms...she has very little to do with the remainder of the story. The courtroom scenes in this story are the least inspired of all the Monk stories thus far. "Slaves of Obsession" feels like a book that was well thought out for about the first half of the story. After that, it feels like the ending was thrown together in time to meet a deadline. Considering how very good the three previous Monk books were, "Slaves of Obsession" comes as a major disappointment.

This is one of the best William Monk/Hester Monk mysteries yet. I was, I confess, disappointed with "The Twisted Root". I had so looked forward to seeing the relationship between Hester and William after they (finally) married. This is the book that Perry should have written just after "Breach of Promise". And I'm glad to see Oliver Rathbone back again. I'm also glad that Perry doesn't have him simply recover from Hester's marriage to another man, but has him deal with the pain.

Perry is extremely good at making her characters human. In these books, the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are not so easy to tell apart. In this story, the man who fights for the right cause is a pompous, vain jerk whom very few can sympathize with, while the man on the wrong side is a very likable person. I won't say any more, lest I spoil the book, but I highly recommend it for fans of this series.

Anne Perry--certainly the "queen of Victoriana"--thrusts her inimitable duo, William and Hester Monk--right in the middle of the American Civil War (it's 1861) in "Slaves of Obsession. And with her usual writing abilities, Perry treats her readers to another exciting episode in this series.

Extortion is the subject here, as Monk, former policeman and now working privately, is hired to track down a killer who has fled to America, and, combined with murder early on, this investigation begins to have so many aspects that it cannot be called "simple." Perry is good at this, however, and never seems to lose track of her goal. She is also good at incorporating history into her police procedurals and pulls no punches as she addresses the slavery issue, arms shipments, and medical practices of the time (Remember, Hester was a nurse during the British Crimean War and now renders aid on the Manassas battlefield!).

Perry, using her standard powers of description and episode, readily shows the carnage, the butchery of the battlefield in readily graphic depictions. Her descriptions, as usual, are not for the faint at heart. By the book's end, of course, Monk has sorted out the convoluted paths to justice and sensibility. American readers may praise "Slaves of Obsession" as one of her best, owing to the locale; regardless, this book shows a maturity that perhaps was there in, say, "Cater Street Hangman." ...

A dark tale that deals with the concepts of obsession, betrayal and love. Anne Perry with her usual brilliance spins an intricate tale that will keep the reader glued to the page. A word of caution though: read the last third of the book with careful attention, otherwise certain facts that are revealed will be missed and the resolution to the mystery will make no sense. (Unlike some mystery writers, Anne Perry does provide the reader with all the clues to the crime that has been committed, so that we may arrive at the conclusion along with the detective.)

William and Hester Monk are invited to dine with Daniel and Judith Alberton. Also at the dinner party are Robert Casblot, Judith's cousin and Daniel's business partner; the Alberton's sixteen year old daughter Merrit; and Lyman Breeland, an American from Conneticut. Soon it becomes evident to the Monks that there are some rather uncomfortable undercurrents swirling around at the dinner table. Soon all is revealed, especially with the intrusion of another American, Philo Trace, to the dinner party. Amongst other things Daniel Alberton also deals in guns. Both Breeland and Trace represent the North and the South respectively, and both want to buy guns from Alberton. Much to Merrit's disgust her father having agreed to sell to Trace first, will not renege on his word and sell to Breeland whose cause she believes in passionately.

However it soon becomes evident that the Monks have been invited for a particular reason. Daniel Alberton is being blackmailed for an act of kindness that could be misconstrued. The blackmailers want him to sell his guns to pirates instead of the Americans. Selling to pirates is something Alberton absolutely refuses to do and so he hires Monk to try and discover who the blckmailers could be. But while Monk is in the middle of this investigation, Alberton is murdered in an absolutely brutal manner, and the guns that were to be sold to Trace are stolen. And there is horrifying fear is that Merrit may somehow be involved in her father's death. Both father and daughter had a really bad falling out and parted company bitterly; and at first it looked as if she had merely runaway with Breeland. But with Alberton murdered and the guns are missing, could there be a more sinister connection?. Could Merrit and Breeland really have perpetrated such a horrendous crime for a cause they both believe in?

Judith Alberton hires Monk to go to American and to bring Merrit back even if she has to face the accusation of having conspired to murder her father. Monk undertakes to bring both Breeland amd Merrit back to England. It seems clearcut: somehow Breeland murdered Alberton and stole the guns, and has either kidnapped Merrit or is using her to cover his guilt. However, once Monk catches up with the couple, he begins to doubt if they had anything to do with the crime at all. Because there is no escaping a court case, Judith Alberton hires Oliver Rathbone to defend both Merrit and Breeland. So while Rathbone tries to fight for the couple in court, Monk works against time, scouring all over the docks and warehouses trying to find evidence to set the couple free.

This is quite a complex tale eventhough it seems clearcut at first. Merrit's and Breeland's guilt seems obvious but once Monk starts investigating for the defense, other facts come to light that could save the two. Anne Perry does a wonderful job at drawing out the mystery and padding the novel with philosophical ideas on the concepts of obsession and love. Also, she does not preach one cause over the other, making us see both sides of the American Civil War debate. But where this book absolutely shines is in the glimpses of war that she provides us with through Hester Monk's eyes. Having survived the Crimean War, Hester is again thrown into the horrors of war when she tries to provide help at the battle of Bull Run. The absolute horror and wastefulness of a war is brilliantly captured in these few chapters, and is what makes this book really stand out.

A book that will keep you ruminating long after you've finished the novel.

I have been a fan of Anne Perry's Monk series since the start. During the first half of this novel I was impressed and felt this was the best in the series since the first two or three. Hester and Monk's relationship was better depicted in this book than in the last one, although at times their chemistry still seems a bit arbitrary. The battle scenes are compelling and gripping. I was fascinated by a British viewpoint of our Civil War. However, in too many of her recent works, the villain is predictable and obvious from the moment of introduction, primarily because she keeps using the same tired plot twist. As I read the second half of this novel, the "trial with Oliver taking on yet another impossible defense" half, I kept hoping that Perry would surprise me and I would be wrong about the villain. She didn't and I wasn't. As for the very end, Perry introduced us to the wonderful technology of mid 19th-century underwater diving, only to rush through it way too fast. The concluding paragraph is particularly hasty, as though Perry wrote it on her way to mail the manuscript to her publisher.

I didn't expect much from this book, the reviews weren't great. I liked it a lot. I bought the book some time ago and hadn't gotten around to it because of the reviews. When I sat down and started reading I finished it which frankly is unusual for an Anne Perry book. I like her writing but sometimes it doesn't grab me right away. This book did grab me and I remain a devoted fan of Ms. Perry. I have ordered her next book and will not let it sit on the shelf before reading it.

Anne Perry is an exqusite writer. Her prose is beautiful and she evokes the era of Victorian England in a wonderful and believable way. In the latest book of this series William Monk and his bride Hester are invited to dinner at the home of Donald Alberton, an arms dealer. An unpleasant scene occurs when Lyman Breeland, a passionate supporter of the Union discovers that Alberton has already promised a shipment of guns to Philo Trace, a southerner. Alberton's daughter, Merrit, is in love with Breeland and she argues with him for her father to support the anti-slavery stand. Alberton claims that he has promised the guns to Trace and cannot back out of the deal, despite his personal feelings about the war in America. Breeland and Merrit flee and one of the main characters is brutally murdered. Breeland's watch is found near the murder scene, which puts the suspicion squarely on him. The rest of the book shifts to American Civil War battlefields and then to a courtroom in England. The identity of the murderer is elusive and is twisted with personal and political motives. As always, Perry provides a very good read.

I'm used to Anne Perry coming up with a twist in the motive that catches me by surprise even when the killer was spotted much earlier in the book. I wasted my time trying to think of the most lurid possible motive. On the other hand, the Secret of the Incredible Disappearing Barge was one I hadn't seen coming.

I give nothing away by stating that Lyman Breeland is a jerk cut from the same cloth as Peter Kreisler from TRAITOR'S GATE. In fact, I could hear Lady Vespasia commenting on their type in my head during one of his early appearances. But does that mean he's guilty?

Philo Trace seems to be a really great guy even if he is from the slave-owning South. Is it all just a mask?

I'm not going to automatically condemn one side or the other in my country's Civil War. My father's family fought for the South. My mother's family is from the North. I thought Anne Perry did a pretty even-handed job of presenting Breeland and Trace's viewpoints. However, I don't recall any of the English characters comparing or contrasting the American Civil War with England's Civil War. I found that odd.

At least having Hester and William at the scene of a bloody battle, besides being the best part of the book, enabled William to understand Hester better. I wonder if Hester is going to exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome in a later book.

Speaking of later books, I hope Anne Perry follows up on the tantalizing clue to Monk's past discovered in this one. Could he really have done anything as disgusting as he fears he might have?

Have fun speculating on whether Ms.Perry meant anything by giving her characters names such as "Lyman", which sounds like "lie, man"; "Meritt", and "Philo Trace". Don't expect much from the courtroom scenes, although I did like the way Rathbone's opponent gave Breeland a well-deserved setdown.

Having been intrigued by the characters in the Monk series from the first, I'm happy to have just read Slaves of Obsession. I don't always think the plots in this series run smoothly, but I think Perry did a nice job with this one. While there are of course characters going around broadcasting their philosophies (after all, this is Perry), they are different ones than we usually read, and by different people. The elements in the story seem to be well-balanced and the ending makes sense in light of the rest of the story. And how interesting to read about the American civil war from a British perspective! Perry has also done nice work with portraying Monk and Hester's relationship.