A Breach of Promise

I love how Anne Perry delves into the hypocrisy of the Victorian area. The way women was treated as possessions and as if they were minors - their total disempowerment. How she pushes us into the dark underbelly of London. But also how she shows us the beauty of the art, architecture and fashion.

And of course she keep me up past midnight again and again with her stories and mystery. The sneaky lady had me thinking I knew what the plot was and when let that part unfold 70 % into the book and takes us on another mystery for the last 30 % of the book. Sneaky and very effective. I am very tired today because I stayed up way past my bedtime to read the end of this book.

I am very happy to report that, were I somehow transported back in time to Victorian England, I would likely be a real superstar of a detective. In this case I actually did not have everything figured out ahead of time. But only because the hapless/genius Monk (and Rathbone too) did not ask the right questions of the right people.

It still would seem the author feels like she may not have convinced us to hate Monk yet, or at least not to hate him enough. Here is an example of one of the things he says to Hester for which I am not sure how she restrained herself from stabbing him:

"It has become a habit with you to tell people what to do for their welfare. It is extremely unattractive. You remind me of one of the more miserable types of show more governess. Nobody likes to be ordered around, even if the person doing it is correct."

All the same I think this was my favorite in the series so far. I may never be able to explain why I like it so much. show less

I did not expect to like this book as well as I did. I chose it for a bit of
fast read fun. It has also been a while since I took on anything Victorian.
The books begins with a young man who was a gifted archetect, Killian Melville,
seeks out Barrister Sir Oliver Rathbone, to defend him in court against the charge of Breach of Promise.
The defense is that Killian has never actually asked for the hand of Zillah, a beautiful
young lady, in marriage. That he knew that marriage plans were being made but that
he never thought it was his own wedding being discussed.

Rathbone was at first disinclined to take the case. He simply thought Melville was a fool and a cad!
Something though, convinced him. Something about the honesty of the way Melville show more presented himself
convinced the Barrister to defend him. Thinking that the odds of winning this case were slim to none,
Rathbone asks his long time friend and investigator William Monk to aide in the endeavor.

But this is not the only story. Gabriel Lambert was wounded badly and in fact disfigured in the war in India.
Hester Latterly, a friend of both the Barrister and the Investigator is a woman who served valiantly in the Crimea n
War, has been asked to be a live in nurse and caregiver for Lambert. His young wife Perdita is distraught and frightened and has no skill in caring for someone with injuries, and needs such as her husband has
brought home with him.

This is a ripping good story, a mystery whose solution will have you leaping out of your comfy chair
and shouting you cannot mean it! And the back story is of how women were thought to be nothing
more than ornamental, and unable to learn or accomplish anything more than keeping a home and their men happy. I really liked this one. I will certainly read more in this series. show less

A satisfying mystery with unexpected twists and turns. Best of all, it furthers the personal stories of William Monk, Hester Latterly, and Oliver Rathbone, continuing characters in Perry's William Monk mystery series.

A brilliant woman architect, disguised as a man, finds herself engaged to another woman... I think that any other author would have made that plot a comedy, but I didn't even think of laughing until I read that summary.The subplot with the deformed children was also nicely handled, and dovetailed well with the main one - perhaps a bit too coincidental, but mysteries often are.How did Dolly lean so much about poisons?

The 9th entry in the William Monk series, this one definitely picked up the pace from the last few entries. The case had a few melodramatic aspects, but Monk's exploration of the stark reality of a woman's place in mid-Victorian England, and the price paid for defying that convention, dovetails very neatly with significant steps in his romance with independent-minded ex-nurse Hester Latterly, and new awareness of the man he's become in the last few years. One of the best character books in this series.

A Victorian Mystery that is so compelling that it was impossible to put down. I read it in one afternoon. Some non Victorian attitudes about women and leaps of faith in some of the subplots, but it worked.