The Face of a Stranger (William Monk, #1)

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The Face of a Stranger (William Monk #1)

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 5,427 ratings · 372 reviews

"Richly textured with the sights and sounds of London and its countryside...Solidly absorbing and Perry's best to date."
THE KIRKUS REVIEWS
His name, they tell him, is William Monk, and he is a London police detective. But the accident that felled him has left him with only half a life; his memory and his entire past have vanished. As he tries to hide the truth, Monk returns...more

Mass Market Paperback, 352 pages

Published May 11th 2011 by Fawcett (first published 1990)

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Jan 02, 2011 Robin (RBBR) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, not-reading-entire-series

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 30, 2009 Cynthiaj rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

It got me hooked on Monk and friends. What a change from modern mysteries/police dramas. The insight into period detail and how it relates to police investigation was nice, but I have found Perry is just a really good story teller. I've read all the Monk books the local library has...

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Sep 10, 2008 Brandi rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this for book club and the book club leader LOVES William Monk books and has read about 10 of them. It was really hard for me to get in to for about 50 pages. There is so much description of that era that bored me for a while but by the end of the book, I could totally imagine what it would be like to live there in that time. She is a great author and the story ended up being great. It's full of twists and turns and it's a neat idea that the person telling the story is figuring things out...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Jacquelyn Gill rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the first in a Victorian mystery series, and it starts with a twist: Monk, our protagonist, has woken in a hospital (not a nice place to be in Victorian England) with amnesia. He discovers he's a police inspector almost right away, but subtle clues-- the fact that no one has visited him in his convalescence, or seems particularly excited he's returned to work-- allow him to piece together a picture of his former life that is rather unpleasant. In other words, Monk appears to have been so...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Dorian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: other-ebooks

"The Face of a Stranger" opens with an unnamed character waking, in pain, he knows not where - though his first guess is the workhouse. Then, though, he realises it's a hospital. But he cannot remember who he is or how he got there; a nurse has to tell him his name - William Monk - and how he ended up in hospital - a cab accident - and it's his boss who tells him that he's a Peeler.

After a chapter or so of faffing about trying - and mostly failing - to remember his life to date, Monk goes back t...more "The Face of a Stranger" opens with an unnamed character waking, in pain, he knows not where - though his first guess is the workhouse. Then, though, he realises it's a hospital. But he cannot remember who he is or how he got there; a nurse has to tell him his name - William Monk - and how he ended up in hospital - a cab accident - and it's his boss who tells him that he's a Peeler.

After a chapter or so of faffing about trying - and mostly failing - to remember his life to date, Monk goes back to work and settles down to trying to solve the murder of one Joscelin Grey, younger brother of Lord Shelburne, who was viciously beaten to death the same night as the accident that put Monk in hospital. He is somewhat hampered by his continuing amnesia, but also by the enmity of his boss, who clearly hates him, and by the dawning realisation that he is not, in fact, a very nice person. However, he resolves, and begins, to be nicer to his colleagues and subordinates, and with the help of an enthusiastic junior named Evan, succeeds in solving the case.

The story is set in mid-nineteenth century London, and the author evokes the world well enough, if not as vividly as she might. Still, at least I saw no blatant anachronisms. I could have done without the horrible eye-dialect that all of the lower-class characters use, mind you.

I liked the characters. Runcorn, Monk's boss, is disgruntled, resentful, and suspicious of Monk, who has been ruthlessly ambitious up to now and probably wants his (Runcorn's) job; he is convincingly nasty and obstructionist to Monk. Evan, Monk's sidekick, is young, enthusiastic, intelligent, and will probably go far; I warmed to him much as Monk did. Monk himself is interesting; he himself doesn't know what he's like at first, and as he begins to find out, doesn't much like what he finds. One gets the distinct impression that he's a much nicer person since he lost his memory. He's still a skilled and experienced detective, though, and doesn't seem to have lost any of that skill. Then there's Hester Latterly, a rather bolshy young lady who's recently back from nursing in the Crimea; I have hopes of her perhaps becoming a love interest for Monk in later books.

I thought the structure of the book was a bit choppy; the author sometimes jumps from one chapter detailing Monk's investigations to another focusing on someone else, doing something apparently irrelevant. The transitions could really have been smoother, but at least the seeming-irrelevancies mostly aren't.

Overall, this was a fairly decent piece of light literature, and I shall go on and read the next book in the series.(less)

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Nov 08, 2012 Dorrie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: victorian-england

I am in love with the William Monk mystery series by Anne Perry! "The Face of a Stranger" is the first book of ten. It is set in Victorian England and is replete with vivid descriptions of life during that time period. The book frequently addresses the great disparity that exists between the rich and the poor in Victorian England. A decorated English officer who served in the recent Crimean War is found murdered. William Monk, the brilliant local police detective, is called in to investigate the...more

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Apr 23, 2012 JBradford rated it 4 of 5 stars

After reading more than 1700 pages through the last two volumes, it was time to get away from Safehold, which must be thousands of years in the future, and the next-read mystery from the last century wasn’t enough, so I dipped into this Victorian mystery, scrounged from a hospital waiting room, and found it delightful. The cover illustration characterizing the novel as “featuring Inspector Monk,” which suggests that Ms. Perry has written other novels about him, as well as her Victorian mystery s...more After reading more than 1700 pages through the last two volumes, it was time to get away from Safehold, which must be thousands of years in the future, and the next-read mystery from the last century wasn’t enough, so I dipped into this Victorian mystery, scrounged from a hospital waiting room, and found it delightful. The cover illustration characterizing the novel as “featuring Inspector Monk,” which suggests that Ms. Perry has written other novels about him, as well as her Victorian mystery series about Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife, so I shall be looking for them. [Added note: in the process of posting this review, I discovered that this was the first of a series about Monk, which explains a few things, such as why a few loose ends were not tied up--which I now expect will happen in a later account.]

I was particularly intrigued in this case, because I had just finished Follett’s Code To Zero, which featured a protagonist who woke up and found he was suffering from complete amnesia, and here was exactly the same situation in this book! A significant difference here was that this amnesiac wakes up in a hospital in Victorian London and is informed right away who he is: a peeler (so named because Sir Robeet Peele, who established a special police force that became the Metropolitan Police Department of London … but, interestingly enough, they were called bobbies in England and peelers in Ireland, which suggests that Ms. Perry--who lives in Scotland--either does not have her Victorian slang quite correct or else that she is better informed than whoever wrote the Wikipedia article about that police force).

There is, indeed, a special set of requirements pertaining to modern day authors who want to write novels set in the Victorian period: they must be able to adopt a vocabulary that clearly belongs to that age, while at the same time making sure that the modern day reader will be able to understand what the strange words mean without looking them up, as most dictionaries available to the average reader would not include such terms, but now we have the Internet, which is positively full of not only the word lists themselves but also learned tomes describing their etymology. All of that was not available to Ms. Perry when she published this book in 1990, but it clearly is there now. Of course, that same information also is available to present day writers, making their job a bit easier, perhaps, but that availability carries with it the danger that they will drop too far into the cant, making their story unreadable. Personally, I think she did this very well. (I, of course, had the advantage of having the Internet to check out a few words for my own enlightenment, but I suspect I would have enjoyed the book just as much back in 1990, when I was reading Barbara Cartland and Georgette Heyer’s novels with equal enthusiasm.)

Actually, Ms. Perry outdoes them, for her protagonist is a policeman, rather than a member of the 400, and his work brings him into conversation with various types of people, some with vastly different accents, and she does a very creditable job (to my uneducated ears) of showing that in print without having to go into the nature of why they talked that way, whereas Cartland and Heyer’s characters were all of high society, except for an occasional servant’s comment. Indeed, Ms. Perry has much the harder task, because her protagonist moves between the upper and lower levels of Victorian society, and she has to show it all, and neither end of the spectrum comes off too well in this portrayal.

William Monk wakes up with lots of bruises and broken bones and is informed that he was in a serious accident when a cab in which he was riding on a stormy July night turned over. He has two problems right away--first, that he remembers nothing of his life before waking up; second, that he realizes that he will lose his employment if his superiors realize this, because he will be useless as a detective without all his previously learned contacts and experience. He is allowed a bit of time for convalescence, which he spends with a young sister he does not remember out in the coastal country, and then he reports to work, being immediately assigned to a high-pressure murder investigation, because the previously assigned inspector has just fallen ill. Consequently, he must proceed to investigate the six-weeks old murder without having any idea how a police inspector goes about doing such a thing, while at the same time managing to hide this fact from his fellow policemen--and, moreover, while at the same time trying to find out more about himself … and finding, as he goes about the latter, that he does not much like the self he appears to have been.

I really enjoyed the way that the author uses this plot to show us a much grimmer picture of what life was like in the Victorian age than we would ever find in the novels by the other writers I mentioned. But what I found particularly interesting was the god-like third-person writing style, which let the author jump over to what appeared to be a completely unrelated story with a thoroughly likable heroine in a different part of society and follow that story for awhile, then jump back to the one she started with--and then, of course, when I least expected it, slowly merge those two stories together, revealing how one affected the other.

I give it four stars, not only because it is an interesting story with nuanced complexity, but because it presents a balanced view of Victorian society (Heyer’s novels made me want to live in that time; this one made me thankful I do not) and the Crimean War (which I had to go study on the Internet to see why the British were involved, since her characters clearly did not know, and neither did I).

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Sep 28, 2011 Gwen Mayo rated it 4 of 5 stars

In this Victorian era mystery by Anne Perry, William Monk, a London police detective, wakes up in a hospital ward and fears he has been reduced to living in a workhouse. Monk is a man haunted by a past he can't remember and the ever present fear that the stranger in the mirror won't be able to bluff his way through the everyday duties of a police detective.

Assigned to solve the murder of a young aristocrat wounded in the Crimean War, Monk must quickly master detective work while trying to hold...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Tiffany rated it 5 of 5 stars

It took me forever to read this, not because the story wasn't compelling, but finding the time to sit and read was difficult.

When I read this book, I was reminded anew why I consider Anne Perry to be a genius. Her stories are well-crafted with impeccable details. But even those great attributes aren't what make her great. Her true gift as a writer is her ability to see and understand human nature and to describe so clearly that you can't help but recognize it immediately.

With lines like these y...more It took me forever to read this, not because the story wasn't compelling, but finding the time to sit and read was difficult.

When I read this book, I was reminded anew why I consider Anne Perry to be a genius. Her stories are well-crafted with impeccable details. But even those great attributes aren't what make her great. Her true gift as a writer is her ability to see and understand human nature and to describe so clearly that you can't help but recognize it immediately.

With lines like these you can't go wrong:

"Beth looked at her with a compassion that made her beautiful."

"I do not care a great deal for charm. But it always seems chameleon to me, and I cannot be sure what color the animal underneath might be really."

"You have a great deal of courage, Hester, and a hunger for life which is a far richer blessing than you think now--but, my dear, you are sometimes very naive. There are many kinds of misery, and many kinds of fortitude, and you should not allow your awareness of one to build to the value of another. you have an intense desire, a passion, to make people's lives better. Be aware that you can truly help people only by aiding them to become what they are, not what you are."

"Too many women waste their lives grieving because they do not have something other people tell them they should want. Whether you are happy or not depends to some degree upon outsward circumstances, but mostly it depends how you choose to look at thing syourself, whether you measure what you have or what you have not."

This is the first book in the William Monk and Hester Latterly series. William is a police officer in the mid 1800's. Hester Latterly has just returned to England from the Crimean war where she served as a nurse with Florence Nightengale. Monk wakes up in a hospital bed with complete amnesia. Throughout the course of the book, he must confront himself--who he was in the past and who he wishes to become. All the while, trying to untangle a mystery of murder and corruption and tragedy that entangles Hester's family and the Grey family.

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Oct 17, 2010 Rosanne Lortz rated it 5 of 5 stars

How many people in the real world actually get amnesia so badly that they can’t remember who they are or recall any of the details of their past life? Definitely not as many people as get amnesia in the literary world. Amnesia in books is used as a deus ex machina, an obvious contrivance on the part of the author to force the story to take a certain turn. But although deus ex machina’s are a complete cop out when used to end a novel, they can rightfully have a place at the beginning of a novel w...more How many people in the real world actually get amnesia so badly that they can’t remember who they are or recall any of the details of their past life? Definitely not as many people as get amnesia in the literary world. Amnesia in books is used as a deus ex machina, an obvious contrivance on the part of the author to force the story to take a certain turn. But although deus ex machina’s are a complete cop out when used to end a novel, they can rightfully have a place at the beginning of a novel when the author is creating the parameters of the fictional world.

The Face of a Stranger, by Anne Perry, is a Victorian mystery novel that begins with the protagonist waking up in the hospital. He has no idea who he is or how he was injured. Gradually he pieces together some facts. His name is William Monk and he is a police detective. He has been very successful with past cases, but his arrogance and impatience with others have earned him the dislike of his inferiors and the jealousy of Runcorn, his superior officer at the police station.

As soon as Monk is ready to go back on duty, Runcorn saddles him with a difficult, sensitive, and high profile case. Jocelin Grey, a young nobleman with important connections, has been brutally murdered in his apartment. Embarrassed by his amnesia, and fully aware that Runcorn wants him to fail the case, Monk tries to conceal his lack of memory. He fumbles and bluffs his way through every conversation trying to conceal his condition. The only person he admits his weakness to is Hester Latterly, an opinionated and strong-willed nurse who is able to remind him of details of a past case that may connect to this one.

Through a long and painful process of interrogation, the case begins to come together. When Monk finds evidence linking the crime to someone in Grey’s elite family, he runs the risk of jeopardizing his own career. He refuses to give up, however, and the stakes grow higher as the two questions most troubling him converge: “Who killed Jocelin Grey?” and “What led up to his own accident and amnesia?” Are the two events related? Running through many twists and turns, this novel is a masterpiece of suspense and characterization that will keep you guessing till the end.

The Face of a Stranger is the first William Monk novel in a series of a dozen or so mysteries. After finishing it, I immediately ordered the next four novels from the library and have been racing through them during the long, solitary hours when my husband is at school or work. The only reason I’m writing this blog post right now instead of devouring the sixth installment is because it’s still on hold at the library. If you like the Lord Peter Wimsey books, give these novels a try. Anne Perry is a worthy second to Dorothy Sayers.(less)

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May 13, 2010 Tom Franklin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Victorian detective story set in 1856.

An overturned hansom knocks the memory out of a London police detective. When he returns to duty several weeks later, he is told to take over the murder of a popular gentleman from a very good, very wealthy family. As he slowly uncovers more about himself, he also uncovers clues as to the murder and the murderer.

As mysteries go, this was okay. Overly long, with far too many sections of inner questioning for the main character, the mystery did have a good tw...more

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Mar 05, 2010 AnnaMay rated it 4 of 5 stars

I felt like clapping as I set down this book after finishing it. I thought it was so fun to read. I actually reached out and patted the book with glee a few times and chuckled to myself once setting it down. :) I can't say many books have entertained me in such a way. I think the complexity of the storyline really had me going. I'm afraid I'm 'hooked.'

I'm so glad Perry was accurate in her account of the 'slums' and the conditions of Victorian times. I appreciated her strictness in presenting soc...more

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Jul 31, 2009 Joy rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was the first book in the William Monk series. Although I have
read two recent books, it was good to start back at the beginning and
see how the character develops. I do like Monk, so I'll want to read
more of the series -- in order. I'm so acquainted with Parker books where there is not one wasted word, this book tended to plod too much for me, and some of the info was repeated too many times. There was good character development, and lots of words of wisdom (one of my favorite things about a...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Kathleen rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a mystery set in Victorian London, but please note: every book set in Victorian London is not, by default, “Dickensian.” I think probably the people who use that particular adjective so loosely must be those who have never actually read any Dickens. Whatever other qualities Perry’s writing may have, it is in no way, shape or form “Dickensian.” I do find that Perry is very knowledgeable about the era in which she sets her books, though. The settings, the characters and the dialogue ring t...more

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May 09, 2013 Delta rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: historic fiction, murder mystery fans

Recommended to Delta by: Goodreads

Shelves: detectives

Set in 19th century Great Britain, The Face of a Stranger is as much a psychological drama as it is a murder/mystery. William Monk awakens in a hospital unable to remember who he is or the accident that caused his amnesia. Upon learning that he is a detective, he hides his devastating memory loss to protect his livelihood and unknown other interests.

While investigating a high profile and politically dangerous murder case, Monk seeks clues to his own life to learn who exactly he is. He must lear

...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Sarahbm rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I really enjoyed this book; it was the first Anne Perry that I read, and it remains my favorite thus far. After reading a lot of Agatha Christie, I enjoyed the fact that Perry shared the investigation with the reader. Monk is not a genius detective, like a Holmes or a Poirot; the narrative takes the reader through Monk's investigation as he slowly works through evidence and goes over it again and again. It sounds as though it would be repetitive, but I found it realistic. I also enjoyed Perry's...more I really enjoyed this book; it was the first Anne Perry that I read, and it remains my favorite thus far. After reading a lot of Agatha Christie, I enjoyed the fact that Perry shared the investigation with the reader. Monk is not a genius detective, like a Holmes or a Poirot; the narrative takes the reader through Monk's investigation as he slowly works through evidence and goes over it again and again. It sounds as though it would be repetitive, but I found it realistic. I also enjoyed Perry's prose, and the story revolved around the personalities of her characters rather than action. I have read some criticism that Monk is too introspective during his interactions with other characters in a way that would seem unnatural in real life. I agree to a certain extent, but I can also imagine that having amnesia and losing your identity would make you a little preoccupied. I think that his insecurity about his identity may be drilled in a little too much, though. And Perry doesn't explain why Monk continues to be rough with people even though he wants to change. I thought his first fight with Hester was too reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice, and I thought their reactions too extreme. I will say that Perry gives Monk room to grow due to his introspection. For instance, Perry implies that the old Monk may not have held Hester's hand as she told her story at the end of the novel.

I think that the message that Perry conveys at the end is morally ambiguous. Monk wants justice, so he confronts Menard about the murder, but at the same time he wants Menard to get off because Joscelin was a terrible person. This is at odds with Perry's repetition of the violence of Joscelin's death. The contrast that Perry could be drawing is the difference between Monk's hitting of Joscelin, and stopping, and Menard's beating Joscelin without stopping. But this is perhaps reading too much into Perry's intent.

At the time I read this book, I didn't know Perry's true identity and background. Now that I do know, I cannot help but read subtext into her books. A good many of the murderers are discovered to have a good reason for killing the person, and I believe that The Face of a Stranger is one of the most striking examples. There is a scene in which Monk visits the murder scene and has a visceral reaction to the intense anger and hatred that would have caused such a violent murder. With these types of scenes and the justifications of murders in her other books, it seems to me that Perry is seeking some kind of catharsis. Until I read the Charlotte and Thomas series, begun before the Monk series, I won't know if there is any credence to this theory.(less)

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Jul 07, 2010 Moontyger rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, historical

Yes, I'm very behind on writing these. And they don't seem to have an image of the edition I have uploaded.

Anyway, so this is the first William Monk novel. I have actually read several of the later ones, which might make reading this one seem odd, but actually, I really enjoyed it. I was a little surprised; there was at least one other of Perry's early books that I'd read and found not very well-written, but this one was quite good.

She sets it in the Victorian age without romanticizing the peri...more

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Nov 06, 2009 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: historical mystery readers

The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry is the first book in her William Monk series. It is not my first Anne Perry book though--I read the 9th book in the series (A Breach of Promise) last year for a book club (which goes against all of my basic instincts when it comes to reading books from a series--I generally like to read them in order!). It intrigued me, so when I found the first book in the series at my favorite used book store, I snatched it up.

William Monk is a man who does not know himself...more The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry is the first book in her William Monk series. It is not my first Anne Perry book though--I read the 9th book in the series (A Breach of Promise) last year for a book club (which goes against all of my basic instincts when it comes to reading books from a series--I generally like to read them in order!). It intrigued me, so when I found the first book in the series at my favorite used book store, I snatched it up.

William Monk is a man who does not know himself. Literally. The book opens with him waking up in a London hospital in 1856, unaware of what happened to him or even what his name is. As the book progresses he learns he is a police detective, and as he steps back into his everyday life he tries to puzzle out what sort of man he is, who his friends and enemies are, and what he was doing before the carriage accident stole his memory. It is interesting to see him struggle with the less admirable aspects of his character when he learns of them. Monk is a fascinating character, and as he tries to regain his memory he also tries to solve the brutal murder of Major Jocelin Grey, a Crimean war hero and gentleman. He also meets beautiful Imogen Latterly, a woman from his last investigation whose father-in-law's suicide is somehow connected to the mystery he is currently grappling with.

My favorite character in the book is Hester Latterly. She is Imogen's less-than-genteel sister-in-law, who spent time in the Crimea working with Florence Nightingale. She is a strong woman character, who is determined to live her life on her own terms, without a man if necessary. She isn't afraid to speak her mind, and although Monk seems to loathe her, she ends up being of great assistance to him in the end.

I really liked the book. The characters were fascinating and unusual (even though Monk seemed a bit angst-ridden at times), and I thought the idea of the main character starting with an almost blank-slate and having to relearn everything about himself was very creative. I am looking forward to see where the next book, A Dangerous Mourning will take me.(less)

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May 17, 2013 Helen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think I've now read all of Ann Perry's William Monk series - so I thought I might go back to square one and remind myself - how it all began. To my delight, as this is not often the case, the book was as interesting, and perhaps even more interesting than it was the first time around. Now I know the characters well, and saw that from the start the personalities of the characters were well drawn and their evolution believable. Willilam Monk is one of the most interesting characters in detective...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Read1000books rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries-non-sherlockian

The first of the unique William Monk mystery series, set in 1850's very Victorian London. Unique in that the story opens with Monk awakening in the hospital with total memory loss, shortly thereafter discovering his name, address, and occupation (police detective). Remembering nothing, he still has the presence of mind to realize he needs an income and returns to work, only to be assigned a difficult but important murder case which is somehow connected to a pre-accident/memory loss case he was w...more

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Sep 27, 2010 Jeanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

While shopping at a used book store, I found Perry's first three Monk mysteries condensed into one book so I thought I would give it a try. I really want to like her writing but her method of story-telling falls short for me.

At the onset of Monk's investigations, Perry never has a thorough briefing with suspects. Monk never asks ALL the questions that need asking. Perry has him go back to suspects several times before many questions are covered. I guess Perry is using this technique to uncover e...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Jocelyn rated it 3 of 5 stars

William Monk's career depends on his ability to solve two cases. One involves the murder of an earl's youngest brother, and thus ticklish dealings with the aristocracy. The other involves self-discovery: he has emerged from an accident with amnesia, and cannot remember any personal details.

I liked the nicely-drawn Victorian setting and the idea that Monk does not necessarily admire what he learns about himself. I didn't like the frequent redundancy, especially the questions Monk is always asking...more

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Apr 10, 2010 Dawn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mysteries

This series is amazing. Setting the stage/introducing the premise and main players in the series is a little slow going in the first book; hang in there. After you've read a couple you will be hooked! The characters will be dearly loved by the time you have worked your way through the series. Anne Perry knows how to give you a mystery that is satisfyingly solved in one book while carefully inching you along in some overriding puzzles or questions or cause for concern in the life story of the mai...more

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Apr 22, 2013 Kathy Petersen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: feb-13-thru-jan14, read-mysteries

William Monk wakes up in hospital, knowing nothing, not even his name. His boss (a stranger to him) wants him back on the Joscelin Grey murder case, of which he, now, is totally unfamiliar. So Monk, step by step, begins to find out who he is, what he has done, and who killed the charming Major Grey.

Perry is an omniscient narrator, following not just Monk but another character or two as well but never revealing too much. She unravels the mystery - mysteries, that is, to include Monk's past - clev...more

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Apr 22, 2011 Sharon Essex rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries

This was the first Anne Perry mystery I ever read and it had me hooked from the first page.

Perry uses the artifice of amnesia to create a fascinating protagonist, a multifaceted character of exceptional depth.

The reader joins Monk as he slowly discovers who he is; it is not always a pretty picture. One feels his desperation as he attempts to hide his memory loss and his frustration as he tries to solve a cold murder case and save his career.

The story evokes all the splendour and squalor of Vi...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Ana Luisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

A-do-rei! Me agarrou bem e lía cada vez que tinha tempo. O final foi lido num dia de passeio familiar e ía dando "updates" das descobertas entremeio da conversa dos outros!

Agora falta achar o segundo livro, e ver se sai novamente Hester Latterly, John Evan e o inspetor Runcorn.

Obs. Nada que ver com o mistério em sí (bom, talvez sim, spoiler...), interessante aprender sobre a Guerra da Crimea, pois nao tinha idéia antes de ser mencionado no livro. Inclusive pensar no surgimento da limpeza nos hos...more

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Dec 04, 2008 Sheryl rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was an OK mystery but a little slow. It took a long time to resolve. Since it took place in England many years ago, it was interesting to see what their perception of policement was. It is about a policeman who is in an accident and loses his memory and fears he has killed someone.

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Jun 01, 2012 Fenra rated it 5 of 5 stars

Right at the start of the book the main character looses his memory and is surprised to learn that he's an police detective. Torn between the problem of being unemployed in a time without any social security net to rely on and rediscovering who he really is, William Monk has nothing to do, short of solving an impossible murder.

The circumstances of the time are depicted really well, you do not feel the storybook character of other books set in that era, but you feel the problems that stem from li...more

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Jan 13, 2011 Anna Engel rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm not usually interested in mystery novels, but this one was recommended by a friend at work, so I decided to give it a shot. The plot follows a detective who is suffering from total amnesia, the result of a carriage accident. The self-assessment throughout the book – should I know this person? why does so-and-so seem to dislike me? was I a callous jerk in my previous life? – gets rather old.

Monk is attempting to track down a murderer, without the benefit of any memories from before his accide...more

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Apr 10, 2010 BJM rated it 3 of 5 stars

Didn't really take so long to read-- was reading the third Thursday Next again and only picking this book up on-and-off again; really plowed through the last 100 pages just to finish it and pick up something else I could really become engrossed in.

The storyline was very intriguing, but the book very slow and I would easily become distracted and have no desire to continue reading. I would like to see if Monk ever regains his memory or if the relationship between himself and Hester Latterly develo...more

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About Anne Perry

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Anne Perry (born Juliet Hulme) is a British historical novelist.

Juliet took the name "Anne Perry", the latter being her stepfather's surname. Her first novel, The Cater Street Hangman, was published under this name in 1979. Her works generally fall into one of several cate...more

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“Too many women waste their lives grieving because they do not have something other people tell them they should want. Whether you are happy or not depends to some degree upon outsward circumstances, but mostly it depends how you choose to look at thing syourself, whether you measure what you have or what you have not.” — 8 people liked it

“Be aware that you can truly help people only by aiding them to become what they are, not what you are. I have heard you say 'If I were you, I would do this, or that.' 'I' am never 'you'--and my solutions may not be yours.” — 2 people liked it

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The Face of a Stranger (William Monk #1)

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