Corridors of the Night (William Monk Series #21)

Anne Perry, that incomparable novelist of life in Victorian England, has once again surpassed herself, with this twenty-first installment of her bestselling William Monk series. In nurse Hester Monk and her husband, William, commander of the Thames River Police, do desperate battle with two obsessed scientists who in the name of healing have turned to homicide. The monomaniacal Rand brothers—Magnus, a cunning doctor, and Hamilton, a genius chemist—are ruthless in their pursuit of a cure for what was then known as the fatal “white-blood disease.” In London’s Royal Naval Hospital annex, Hester is tending one of the brothers’ dying patients—wealthy Bryson Radnor—when she stumbles upon three weak, terrified young children, and learns to her horror that they’ve been secretly purchased and imprisoned by the Rands for experimental purposes. But the Rand brothers are too close to a miracle cure to allow their experiments to be exposed. Before Hester can reveal the truth, she too becomes a prisoner. As Monk and his faithful friends—distinguished lawyer Oliver Rathbone and reformed brothel keeper Squeaky Robinson among them—scour London’s grimy streets and the beautiful English countryside searching for her, Hester’s time, as well as the children’s, is quickly draining away. Taut with intrigue and laced with white-knuckled terror, is Anne Perry at her magnificent, unforgettable best. “[A] suspenseful, twisting narrative.” “Anne Perry has once again evocatively and meticulously conjured up Victorian London. . . . This is one of her best as she continues probing . . . the dark impulses that haunt all human souls.” “Pulls no punches and depicts Victorian London in all its corrupt glory.” “One of Ms. Perry’s most engrossing books . . . gallops to a dramatic conclusion.” “[Perry’s] courtroom scenes have the realism of Scott Turow.” “Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries are marvels.” “Masterful storytelling and moving dialogue.” “[An] engrossing page-turner . . . There’s no one better at using words to paint a scene and then fill it with sounds and smells than Anne Perry.”