“The Face of a Stranger” - Anne Perry

(William Monk book 1)

🎖This series of Victorian era mysteries is fronted by Detective William Monk, who has met with a terrible accident. When we meet Monk, he discovers that he is suffering from amnesia. In order to maintain employment and survive, Monk must use every ounce of instinct to solve cases. Monk can’t operate on autopilot; every single gesture/question/idea must be carefully thought out so as not to alert his fellow Peelers (Victorian era slang for the London metroplitan police) to his mental state. To make matters worse, his vindictive superintendent has assigned him to a high profile murder of an aristocratic young man.

🎖Monk’s slow journey of self-discovery adds a fascinating layer to this mystery. Monk is a detective trying to solve the case with nothing but instinct and nerve; his prior experience is unavailable to him. He will have to tread carefully since he doesn’t know who is a friend and who is a foe.


🎖This novel is set in post-Crimean War England. For those that don’t know, the Crimean War was a disastrous military entanglement for Great Britain under Queen Victoria’s reign. Specifically, the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava is a central event in TFOAS (the link will take you to an informative source if you want to read more about this military blunder).


The Queen Victoria biography I read last year details how the British public was largely kept in the dark about the sheer incompetence of military leadership, failures to adequately supply British troops, and the disease-ravaged hospitals tending to the British soldiers. Florence Nightingale and her nurses labored tirelessly on behalf of these soldiers.


🎖Monk and Hester are often quite preachy about the disastrous Crimean War as well as the disparity between the haves and have nots in Victorian society. Their points are well taken but the repetition is a bit tedious. I enjoyed this novel and am looking forward to the rest of the series. The mystery was clever and allowed Perry to comment on the social stratification of the era. The bonus of an amnesiatic detective took it to another level.

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