Defend And Betray William Monk Mystery Book 3

After a brilliant military career, esteemed General Thaddeus Carlyon finally meets his death, not in the frenzy of battle but at an elegant London dinner party. His demise appears to be the result of a freak accident, but the general’s beautiful wife, Alexandra, readily confesses that she killed him–a story she clings to even under the threat of the noose. Investigator William Monk, nurse Hester Latterly, and brilliant Oliver Rathbone, counsel for the defense, work feverishly to break down the wall of silence raised by the accused and her husband’s proud family. With the trial only days away, these there sleuths inch toward the dark and appalling heart of the mystery.

Nurse Hester Latterly finds herself well suited for the task: accompany Mrs. Mary Farraline, an elderly Scottish lady in delicate health, on a short train trip to London. Yet Hester’s simple job takes a grave turn when Mrs. Farraline dies during the night. And when a postmortem examination of the body reveals a lethal dose of medicine, Hester is charged with murder–punishable by execution. This notorious case presents detective William Monk with a daunting task: find a calculating killer among the prominent and coolly unassailable Farraline clan–and try to save Hester from the gallows.

When Countess Zorah Rostova asks London barrister Sir Oliver Rathbone to defend her against a charge of slander, he is astonished to find himself accepting. For without a shred of evidence, the countess has publicly insisted that the onetime ruler of her small German principality was murdered by his wife, the woman who was responsible for the prince’s exile to Venice twenty years before. Private investigator William Monk and his friend Hester Latterly journey to the City of Water in an attempt verify the countess’s claims, and though the two manage to establish that the prince was indeed murdered, as events unfold the likeliest suspect seems to be Countess Zorah herself.

Anne Perry’s acclaimed William Monk novels have captivated readers with their rich texture and masterly suspense, leading The New York Times Book Review to exclaim, “Give her a good murder and a shameful social evil, and Anne Perry can write a Victorian mystery that would make Dickens’s eyes pop.” Now, the first five books in the spellbinding series are collected in this addictive eBook bundle: FACE OF A STRANGER His name, they tell him, is William Monk, and he is a London police detective. With his memory erased after a terrible accident, Monk intends on hiding his condition and starting a new life by tackling a grisly murder case in which each new revelation leads him to the answers he seeks—but dreads to find. A DANGEROUS MOURNING Called upon to investigate the brutal murder of a blue-blooded young widow, Monk is plagued by both his lingering amnesia and an inept supervisor. But when nurse Hester Latterly offers her assistance, together they grope warily through the silence and shadows that obscure the aristocrat’s demise. DEFEND AND BETRAY After a brilliant military career, General Thaddeus Carlyon meets his death not on the battlefield but at a London dinner party. Although his wife confesses to the murder, Monk and Hester suspect deceit. With the trial only days away, they feverishly work to unravel the dark heart of the mystery. Praise for Anne Perry and her William Monk series “Perry’s Victorian mysteries are marvels.”—The New York Times Book Review “There’s no one better at using words to paint a scene and then fill it with sounds and smells than Anne Perry.”—The Boston Globe “[The] reigning monarch of the Victorian mystery.”—People “Few mystery writers this side of Arthur Conan Doyle can evoke Victorian London with such relish for detail and mood.”—San Francisco Chronicle “[A] master of crime fiction.”—The Baltimore Sun “[Among] Perry’s strengths: memorable characters and an ability to evoke the Victorian era with the finely wrought detail of a miniaturist.”—The Wall Street Journal

In a London hospital, Prudence Barrymore, a talented nurse who had once been one of Florence Nightingale’s angels of mercy in the Crimean War, meets sudden death by strangulation. Private inquiry agent William Monk is engaged to investigate this horrific crime–which intuition tells him was no random stroke of violence by a madman. Greatly helped by his unconventional friend Hester Latterly, another of Miss Nightingale’s nurses, and barrister Oliver Rathbone, Monk assembles a portrait of the remarkable woman. Yet he also discerns the shadow of a tragic evil that darkens every level of society, and a frightening glimmer of his own eclipsed past.

Few authors have written more mesmerizingly about Victorian London than Anne Perry. Readers enter her world with exquisite anticipation, and experience a rich variety of characters and class: aristocrats living in luxury, flower sellers on street corners, ladies of the evening seeking customers on gaslit streets, gentlemen in hansom cabs en route to erotic diversions unknown in their Mayfair mansions. Now Perry gives her myriad fans the book they’ve been waiting for—the novel in which William Monk breaks through the wall of amnesia and discovers at last who he once was. DEATH OF A STRANGER For the prostitutes of Leather Lane, nurse Hester Monk’s clinic is a lifeline, providing medicine, food, and a modicum of peace—especially welcome since lately their ailments have escalated from bruises and fevers to broken bones and knife wounds. At the moment, however, the mysterious death of railway magnate Nolan Baltimore in a sleazy neighborhood brothel overshadows all else. Whether he fell or was pushed, the shocking question in everyone’s mind is: What was such a pillar of respectability doing in a seedy place of sin? Meanwhile, brilliant private investigator William Monk acquires a new client, a mysterious beauty who asks him to ascertain beyond a shadow of a doubt whether or not her fiancé, an executive in Nolan Baltimore’s thriving railway firm, has become enmeshed in fraudulent practices that could ruin him. As Hester ventures into violent streets to learn who is responsible for the brutal abuse of her patients, Monk embarks upon a journey into the English countryside, where the last rails are being laid for a new line. But the sight of tracks stretching into the distance revives memories once stripped from his consciousness by amnesia—as a past almost impossible to bear returns, eerily paralleling a fresh tragedy that has already begun its inexorable unfolding.

No breath of scandal has ever touched the aristocratic Moidore family–until Sir Basil’s beautiful widowed daughter is stabbed to death in her own bed, a shocking, incomprehensible tragedy. Inspector William Monk is ordered to investigate in a manner that will give the least possible pain to the influential family. But Monk, brilliant and ambitious, is handicapped by lingering traces of amnesia and by the craven ineptitude of his supervisor, who would like nothing better than to see Monk fail. With the help of nurse Hester Latterly, a progressive young woman who served with Florence Nightingale in the Crimea, Monk gropes warily through the silence and shadows that obscure the case, knowing that with each step he comes closer to the appalling truth.

When his friend, judge Oliver Rathbone, rashly crosses a line and inadvertently causes the death of a charismatic minister, police superintendent William Monk and his wife, Hester, navigate the perilous case to expose the truth and clear Rathbone's name.