no. 8

What I like about the Monk series is that Monk does not play a dominant role. In this novel it is Hester Latterly, nurse, who is the lead character. The same was true for the only other book I've read in this series, Sins of the Wolf.
Similarly, the puzzle, though crucial to the story, does not overwhelm other themes. There is good development of the triangle relationship between Monk, Latterly, and Sir Oliver Rathbone the solicitor. Again it is Hester who sits at the centre of the tension, maintaining her independence, yet drawn to both of the men.
As for puzzle: the story begins with the discovery of two men beaten and lying in an alley in a rough section of London, one dead, the other barely alive. They are father and son, Leighton and Rhys Duff. How they came to this state leads the reader, and the respectable, middle-class characters, into the seediest, poorest parts of Victorian London. Monk discovers that the murder is linked to the rape and violent beating of a number of "amateur" prostitutes in Seven Dials, another slum of the city. The truth of the murder is revealed only in the final few paragraphs.
Along the way Perry provides an excellent examination of the historical setting, the desperate plight of the poor women driven to prostitution for survival. She also opens the curtain on a major part of Monk's past, gradually revealing the life hidden by his amnesia.
The Silent Cry is above average as both a detective story and an historical novel. ( )