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A Breach of Promise (William Monk Novels)
by Anne Perry
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Ivy Books (1999-09-07)
ISBN: 0804118558
EAN: 9780804118552
Dewy Decimal #: 823.914
Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
Release Date: 1999-09-07
SKU: 01568
Condition: Collectible: Good 1s
Comments: First Mass Market Domestic Addition September 1999. Book in good condition. Small bend in book.
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Editorial Reviews
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Amazon.com Review
The promises that are breached, broken, and never born in Anne Perry's rich and resonant new William Monk mystery all have to do with the roles and positions of women in Victorian society. At the center of the book is a rousing courtroom drama, as young Zillah Lambert--daughter of a wealthy, well-meaning northern businessman and his socially ambitious wife--sues an immensely gifted architect, Killian Melville. Melville, Zillah argues, failed to live up to his promise of marriage and thereby ruined her chances of making any sort of acceptable match. Private detective Monk is brought into the case by lawyer Oliver Rathbone when his client (Melville), facing financial and social ruin, still refuses to offer any reason for his dastardly conduct. Monk's attentions are occupied elsewhere, too. Hester Latterly, the courageous nurse who worked with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, and whose favors Monk and Rathbone both desire, is looking after a British officer, Gabriel Sheldon, who was badly wounded and disfigured in India. Gabriel's wife, Perdita, is having trouble adjusting to her husband's broken body and spirit. "It was not Perdita's fault that she was confused and frightened," Monk muses. "She had been protected all her short life. She had not chosen to be, it was her assigned role." Monk has also promised a housemaid in the Sheldons' service that he will look for her two little nieces--deaf and deformed from birth--who were abandoned by their mother almost 20 years before. As the cases tangle and combine (perhaps a tad too coincidentally for some tastes, but, then again, real life is full of coincidences), Perry manages to show us the many ways in which women were made to pay for their place in a male-dominated society. She also delivers a touching and surprisingly suspenseful story. Other Monk books in paperback: The Silent Cry, Cain His Brother, Defend and Betray, Weighed in the Balance. --Dick Adler
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Product Description
In a sensational breach of promise suit, two wealthy social climbers are suing on behalf of their beautiful daughter, Zillah. The defendant is Zillah's alleged fiancé, brilliant young architect Killian Melville, who adamantly declares that he will not, cannot, marry her. Utterly baffled by his client's refusal, Melville's counsel, Sir Oliver Rathbone, turns to his old comrades in crime--investigator William Monk and nurse Hester Latterly. But even as they scout London for clues, the case suddenly and tragically ends. An outcome that no one--except a ruthless murderer--could have foreseen.
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Customer Reviews
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Complicated and involving . . .
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-06-03
This one is somewhat different from the others in the William Monk/Hester Latterley murder mysteries set in Victorian London of the late 1850s. For starters, the courtroom scenes come near the beginning, while the murder itself doesn't occur until three-quarters of the way through. Killian Melville, a brilliant young architect whom many consider a genius in his art, finds that the mother of the young woman with whom he has become close friends assumes he's paying court and has already begun planning the wedding, even to the extent of placing announcements in the newspapers. When he tries to explain that he's not interested in marrying anyone, the parents sue for breach of promise. Knowing this would ruin him personally and professionally as well as financially, Melville asks Sir Oliver Rathbone, brilliant London barrister, to defend him, and Rathbone, against his better judgment, agrees. But Melville isn't telling him everything and Rathbone, who has nothing he can build a defense on, engages private detective Monk to investigate everyone in the case. Meanwhile, nurse Hester is looking after a young army officer who has lost an arm and whose face has been disfigured, and whose equally young but far more naive wife hasn't a clue how to care for him or even what his experiences have been. Hester, naturally, tackles not only the medical and physical therapy issues but all the family's other problems as well -- including the present whereabouts of the family's cook's sister's two children, abandoned twenty years before. Perry always includes headline social issues as background in her novels, and in this case it's society's treatment of gender identity, enforced limitations in sex roles, and bias against the handicapped -- all of them still mostly with us today, though not to the extent they were 150 years ago. The author has a bad habit of telegraphing the solutions early in the narrative, but I confess that this time the crucial bit of information caught me by surprise -- probably because of the adept insertion of a believable red herring. There are some structure and plot problems, though. Perry solves the mystery in the last few problems but there is no indication whether the socially prominent malefactor will even be prosecuted, or what happens to the innocent members of the family, who are presented sympathetically. She also depends (again) on extremely unlikely coincidence for her pivotal plot points. Still, this is one of the better books in the series.
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Paid by the word?
Rating  (2)
Date: 2008-04-01
While I have enjoyed some of Ms. Perry's mysteries, this one, although well-plotted, had me grinding my teeth. The book is nearly 400 pages, but the story is closer to 200. Ms. Perry repeats ad nauseam the characters' thoughts and conversations, going over the same ground again and again. One wonders if she has no editor. Or perhaps she's being paid by the word.
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Deja vu
Rating (4)
Date: 2007-09-02
14 out of 14 customers found this reveiw helpful
NOTE: This is not a new book. It was published in the U.S. as "Breach of Promise." Dedicated Anne Perry fans will already have read it. Otherwise it's fine.
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Dress for Success
Rating (4)
Date: 2007-04-28
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
In this novel the Jane Austin predatory
world of high class female society in the Victorian age
traps and railroads a man into a marriage he doesn't want.
A woman and her daughter assume that he has consented
when he had no intension of being more than a family friend
who owed his living to the father's patronage of his architectural genius.
I had just been reading "The Hours" The Hoursand after that " Mrs Dalloway"Mrs. Dalloway.
The glib supposition of history is that Virginia Woolf
like the woman of this novel was supposed to have committed suicide.
Anne Perry as admittedly an English woman of literary genius
has another understanding/ solution of the case:
it is another William Monk murder investigation.
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A surprise twist even for a Mystery novel
Rating  (3)
Date: 2006-12-12
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This one kept me guessing. Anne Perry fans know her works to be well written and with great development of the characters as well as the story lines. The details with which she describes life in victorian England are delightful and a credit to serious study and research.
This volume was a well written one that kept me interested and intrigued. I enjoy each of her works a lot and this one surprised me much more than most in the outcome and details.
However, if you are not a serious Perry fan, and have already read one of her books, you will find that there is much similarity from one to another. If you were to compare it to movies, the "Action movie" may be a favorite of many men. The "romantic comedy, or drama" might be termed a Chick flick. I know that this would fall into the latter category in spite of the murder mystery and the suspence involved because the avid fans come back to Perry for her ongoing character story lines. The Charlotte and Thomas Pitts as well as William and Hester Monk.
Yes, the book is a very good book and I hope you will enjoy it. Just, if you are looking for variety and have already tasted her style, you won't find it here.
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