Perry hammers every point home mercilessly, but fans of this well-upholstered series have surely learned long since to deal...
William Monk, now commander of the Thames River Police’s Wapping Station, finally closes his late predecessor’s last case.
Everyone in Queen Victoria’s London knows that Jericho Phillips is the scourge of the Thames. Holed up in a well-guarded craft, he keeps a stable of young boys working to provide an unending stream of photographs for gentlemen with a taste for sodomy and pornography. But knowing isn’t proving, as Monk finds to his fury after he chases Phillips down and arrests him. None other than Sir Oliver Rathbone, the former suitor of Monk’s wife Hester, is engaged by an anonymous client of Arthur Ballinger, Rathbone’s father-in-law, to defend Phillips. Exploiting his insider’s knowledge of the passionate hatred of Phillips that Monk inherited from Commander Durban, the mentor who died heroically in his last case (A Christmas Grace, 2008), Rathbone is able to persuade a jury that Monk’s arrest was based on prejudice rather than facts. His defeat forces Monk and Hester to start all over again, this time with the knowledge that Phillips is fully aware of their intentions and ready to anticipate each move. Perry offers the usual fare, except that this time the ceremonious speeches decrying human-rights abuses are less facile and more directly relevant, and the courtroom scenes are more plausible. Only readers new to Monk’s exploits can doubt the outcome.
Perry hammers every point home mercilessly, but fans of this well-upholstered series have surely learned long since to deal with repetition.Pub Date: March 24, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-345-46933-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2009
An undisciplined but powerfully lacerating story, by an author who knows every block of the neighborhood and every hair on...
After five adventures for Boston shamus Patrick Kenzie and his off-again lover Angela Gennaro (Prayers for Rain, 1999, etc.), Lehane tries his hand at a crossover novel that’s as dark as any of Patrick’s cases.
Even the 1975 prologue is bleak. Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus are playing, or fighting, outside Sean’s parents’ house in the Point neighborhood of East Buckingham when a car pulls up, one of the two men inside flashes a badge, and Sean and Jimmy’s friend Dave Boyle gets bundled inside, allegedly to be driven home to his mother for a scolding but actually to get kidnapped. Though Dave escapes after a few days, he never really outlives his ordeal, and 25 years later it’s Jimmy’s turn to join him in hell when his daughter Katie is shot and beaten to death in the wilds of Pen Park, and State Trooper Sean, just returned from suspension, gets assigned to the case. Sean knows that both Dave and Jimmy have been in more than their share of trouble in the past. And he’s got an especially close eye on Jimmy, whose marriage brought him close to the aptly named Savage family and who’s done hard time for robbery. It would be just like Jimmy, Sean knows, to ignore his friend’s official efforts and go after the killer himself. But Sean would be a lot more worried if he knew what Dave’s wife Celeste knows: that hours after catching sight of Katie in the last bar she visited on the night of her death, Dave staggered home covered with somebody else’s blood. Burrowing deep into his three sorry heroes and the hundred ties that bind them unbearably close, Lehane weaves such a spellbinding tale that it’s easy to overlook the ramshackle mystery behind it all.
An undisciplined but powerfully lacerating story, by an author who knows every block of the neighborhood and every hair on his characters’ heads.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-16316-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
