Deep in London’s dangerous slums, Victorians transact their most secret and shameful business. For a price, a man can procure whatever he wants. But for one such man, the price he pays is his life. In sunless Water Lane, respected solicitor Leighton Duff lies dead, kicked and beaten to death. Beside him is the barely living body of his son, Rhys. The police cannot fathom these brutal assaults until shrewd investigator William Monk, aided by nurseturnedsleuth Hester Latterly, uncovers a connection between them and a series of rapes and beatings of local prostitutes. But then the case takes an even more shocking turn.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Anne Perry's magnificent Victorian mysteries established her as one of the world's best known and loved historical novelists. Now, in her vividly imagined World War I novels, Perry's talents "have taken a quantum leap" (The Star-Ledger), and so has the number of her devoted readers. We Shall Not Sleep, the final book in this epic series featuring the dedicated Reavley family, is perhaps the most memorably enthralling of all Perry's novels. After four long years, peace is finally in sight. But chaplain Joseph Reavley and his sister Judith, an ambulance driver on the Western Front, are more hard pressed than ever. Behind the lines, violence is increasing: soldiers are abusing German prisoners, a nurse has been raped and murdered, and the sinister ideologue called the Peacemaker now threatens to undermine the peace just as he did the war. Then Matthew, the third Reavley sibling and an intelligence expert, suddenly arrives at the front with startling news. The Peacemaker's German counterpart has offered to go to England and expose his co-conspirator as a traitor. But with war still raging and prejudices inflamed, such a journey would be fraught with hazards, especially since the Peacemaker has secret informers everywhere, even on the battlefield. For richness of plot, character, and feeling, We Shall Not Sleep is unmatched. Anne Perry's brilliantly orchestrated finale is a heartstopping tour de force, mesmerizing and totally satisfying.
When a group of powerful Irish Protestants and Catholics gather at a country house to discuss Irish home rule, contention is to be expected. But when the meetings moderator, government bigwig Ainsley Greville, is found murdered in his bath, negotiations seem doomed. Unless Superintendent Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, can root out the truth, simmering hatreds and passions may again explode in murder.
Clemency Shaw, the wife of a prominent doctor, has died in a tragic fire in the peaceful suburb of Highgate. But the blaze was set by an arsonist, and it is unclear whether she or Dr. Shaw was the intended victim--or did the doctor himself set the blaze in order to inherit his wifes large fortune? Baffled by the scarcity of clues in this terrible crime, Inspector Thomas Pitt turns to the people who had been closest to the couple--Clemencys stuffy but distinguished relatives. Meanwhile, Pitts wellborn wife, Charlotte, retraces the dangerous path that Clemency walked in the last months of her life, finding herself enmeshed in a sinister web that stretches from the lowest slums to the loftiest centers of power.
Inspector Thomas Pitt is shocked. The body of a boy, clearly from the upper classes, has been found in the filthy sewers of Bluegate Fields, one of London's most dangerous slums. What's more, the unfortunate boy had been violated before he was murdered. So vile a case is hardly a topic for drawing-room conversation. But when the Waybournes, the boy's family, refuse to answer the police's questions, Inspector Pitt begins to wonder what secrets they are trying to hide. Pitt's wife and helpmeet, Charlotte, is determined to find out-even if it means tearing down the facades of an oh-so-proper family.
