A Sunless Sea: A William Monk Novel (William Monk Novels)
*Starred Review* In Victorian London, anyone could go to the local druggist’s and pick up a pennyworth of opium from the open shelves. The drug was promoted as a panacea for many small ills, and its devastating effects were hushed up through the efforts of many of Britain’s wealthiest families, whose fortunes had been built on the opium trade. Opium is the focus of Perry’s latest William Monk mystery, and the horror surrounding this social evil deepens as the well-crafted novel progresses. Monk, long a member of the Metropolitan Police, is now in command of the Thames River Police, which expands Perry’s atmospheric reach to include the brooding, jumbled warren of river traffic. The gutted body of a woman is discovered on Limehouse Pier. Monk’s street canvassing of local prostitutes reveals a connection between the dead woman and a doctor who committed suicide some weeks before. Apparently, the doctor was devastated when his extensive report on the evils of opium use was rejected by the government. Monk’s reach into this mystery is extended by his wife, Hester, a nurse who runs a women’s clinic and who has contacts among both doctors and street people. The investigation concludes in a hold-your-breath trial, starring Monk’s old friend, Sir Oliver Rathbone. The eighteenth Monk novel is a brilliant Victorian police procedural in which well-realized characters and settings are fascinating in themselves. And, as in all her Monk novels, Perry exhumes and exhibits yet another of the Victorian era’s social evils. --Connie Fletcher