Acceptable Loss

Author: Anne Perry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345530306
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Anne Perry’s seventeenth William Monk novel, now in paperback, is a mesmerizing masterpiece of innocence and evil on London’s docks, a welcome addition to this successful and beloved series. NATIONAL BESTSELLER On a London riverbank, when the body of small-time crook Mickey Parfitt washes up with the tide, no one grieves. But William Monk, commander of the River Police, is puzzled by the murder weapon: an elegant scarf whose original owner was obviously a man of substance. Dockside informers lead Monk to a floating palace of corruption on the Thames managed by Parfitt, where a band of half-starved boys is held captive for men willing to pay a high price for midnight pleasures. Though Monk and his fearless wife, Hester, would gladly reward Parfitt’s killer, duty leads them in another direction—to an unresolved crime, to a deadly confrontation with some of the empire’s most respected men, and ultimately to a courtroom showdown with Monk’s old friend, Oliver Rathbone, in a trial of nearly unbearable tension and suspense. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Anne Perry's A Sunless Sea. “Masterful storytelling . . . [the] best in the series to date.”—The Star-Ledger

Weighed in the Balance

Author: Anne Perry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 034551405X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
When Countess Zorah Rostova asks London barrister Sir Oliver Rathbone to defend her against a charge of slander, he is astonished to find himself accepting. For without a shred of evidence, the countess has publicly insisted that the onetime ruler of her small German principality was murdered by his wife, the woman who was responsible for the prince’s exile to Venice twenty years before. Private investigator William Monk and his friend Hester Latterly journey to the City of Water in an attempt verify the countess’s claims, and though the two manage to establish that the prince was indeed murdered, as events unfold the likeliest suspect seems to be Countess Zorah herself.

A Sunless Sea

Author: Anne Perry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345535936
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
Anne Perry’s spellbinding Victorian mysteries, especially those featuring William Monk, have enthralled readers for a generation. The Plain Dealer calls Monk “a marvelously dark, brooding creation”—and, true to form, this masterpiece is as deceptively deep and twisty as the Thames. As commander of the River Police, Monk is accustomed to violent death, but the mutilated female body found on Limehouse Pier one chilly December morning moves him with horror and pity. The victim’s name is Zenia Gadney. Her waterfront neighbors can tell him little—only that the same unknown gentleman had visited her once a month for many years. She must be a prostitute, but—described as quiet and kempt—she doesn’t appear to be a fallen woman. What sinister secrets could have made poor Zenia worth killing? And why does the government keep interfering in Monk’s investigation? While the public cries out for blood, Monk, his spirited wife, Hester, and their brilliant barrister friend, Oliver Rathbone, search for answers. From dank waterfront alleys to London’s fabulously wealthy West End, the three trail an ice-blooded murderer toward the unbelievable, possibly unprovable truth—and ultimately engage their adversaries in an electric courtroom duel. But unless they can work a miracle, a monumental evil will go unpunished and an innocent person will hang. Anne Perry has never worn her literary colors with greater distinction than in A Sunless Sea, a heart-pounding novel of intrigue and suspense in which Monk is driven to make the hardest decision of his life. Includes an excerpt from Anne Perry’s next William Monk novel, Blind Justice Praise for A Sunless Sea “Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries are marvels.”—The New York Times Book Review “Unexpected twists and revelations keep the plot humming with typical Anne Perry deception and wit.”—Bookreporter “Much more than a whodunit, this book [is] possibly the author’s best yet.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Execution Dock

Author: Anne Perry
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 034546933X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
When a thirteen-year-old boy is found floating in the river Thames with his throat slit, William Monk, superintendent of the Thames River Police, pursues a child pornographer who runs a sex ring using small boys. Monk's wife Hester and several memorable c

Funeral in Blue

Author: Anne Perry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345514149
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
Two beautiful women have been found strangled in the studio of a well-known London artist. To investigator William Monk and his wife, Hester, the murders are a nightmare. One of the victims is the wife of Hester’s cherished colleague, surgeon Dr. Kristian Beck, a Viennese émigré who becomes the prime suspect. With an intensity born of desperation, the Monks seek evidence that will save Dr. Beck from the hangman. From London’s sinister slums to the crowded coffeehouses of Vienna, where embers of the revolution still burn in the hearts of freedom-loving men and women, Hester and Monk seek to penetrate not only the mystery of Elissa Beck’s death but the riddle of her life.

The Sins of the Wolf

Author: Anne Perry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0307767795
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Book Description
Nurse Hester Latterly finds herself well suited for the task: accompany Mrs. Mary Farraline, an elderly Scottish lady in delicate health, on a short train trip to London. Yet Hester’s simple job takes a grave turn when Mrs. Farraline dies during the night. And when a postmortem examination of the body reveals a lethal dose of medicine, Hester is charged with murder–punishable by execution. This notorious case presents detective William Monk with a daunting task: find a calculating killer among the prominent and coolly unassailable Farraline clan–and try to save Hester from the gallows.

A Little Life

Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804172706
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 833

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

A Sudden, Fearful Death

Author: Anne Perry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345513983
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 466

Book Description
In a London hospital, Prudence Barrymore, a talented nurse who had once been one of Florence Nightingale’s angels of mercy in the Crimean War, meets sudden death by strangulation. Private inquiry agent William Monk is engaged to investigate this horrific crime–which intuition tells him was no random stroke of violence by a madman. Greatly helped by his unconventional friend Hester Latterly, another of Miss Nightingale’s nurses, and barrister Oliver Rathbone, Monk assembles a portrait of the remarkable woman. Yet he also discerns the shadow of a tragic evil that darkens every level of society, and a frightening glimmer of his own eclipsed past.

The Cult of Smart

Author: Fredrik deBoer
Publisher: All Points Books
ISBN: 1250200385
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
Named one of Vulture’s Top 10 Best Books of 2020! Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform. Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: Academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability. Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place. This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.

Death of a Stranger

Author: Anne Perry
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345514165
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
Few authors have written more mesmerizingly about Victorian London than Anne Perry. Readers enter her world with exquisite anticipation, and experience a rich variety of characters and class: aristocrats living in luxury, flower sellers on street corners, ladies of the evening seeking customers on gaslit streets, gentlemen in hansom cabs en route to erotic diversions unknown in their Mayfair mansions. Now Perry gives her myriad fans the book they’ve been waiting for—the novel in which William Monk breaks through the wall of amnesia and discovers at last who he once was. DEATH OF A STRANGER For the prostitutes of Leather Lane, nurse Hester Monk’s clinic is a lifeline, providing medicine, food, and a modicum of peace—especially welcome since lately their ailments have escalated from bruises and fevers to broken bones and knife wounds. At the moment, however, the mysterious death of railway magnate Nolan Baltimore in a sleazy neighborhood brothel overshadows all else. Whether he fell or was pushed, the shocking question in everyone’s mind is: What was such a pillar of respectability doing in a seedy place of sin? Meanwhile, brilliant private investigator William Monk acquires a new client, a mysterious beauty who asks him to ascertain beyond a shadow of a doubt whether or not her fiancé, an executive in Nolan Baltimore’s thriving railway firm, has become enmeshed in fraudulent practices that could ruin him. As Hester ventures into violent streets to learn who is responsible for the brutal abuse of her patients, Monk embarks upon a journey into the English countryside, where the last rails are being laid for a new line. But the sight of tracks stretching into the distance revives memories once stripped from his consciousness by amnesia—as a past almost impossible to bear returns, eerily paralleling a fresh tragedy that has already begun its inexorable unfolding.