In a stunning feat of the imagination, Anne Perry encloses readers within the magic circle of her genius and brings to life the lost world of England's Victorian Age. Hoofbeats clatter on cobblestones, gaslight glimmers through fog, and in the exclusive privacy of elegant drawing rooms, powerful men and women once again live the splendor and shame of that matchless era. With The Twisted Root, Perry holds us rapt with a chilling story of love, betrayal, and consummate evil.
As private investigator William Monk listens to young Lucius Stourbridge plead for help in tracking down his runaway fiancée, he feels a sense of heavy foreboding. Miriam Gardiner disappeared suddenly from a croquet party at the luxurious Bayswater mansion of her in-laws-to-be, and has not been seen since. But on Hampstead Heath, Monk finds the coach in which Miriam had fled and, nearby, the murdered body of the coachman. There is no trace of Miriam.
What strange compulsion could have driven the beautiful widow to abandon the prospect of a loving marriage and financial abundance? Monk's attempt to answer that question proves a challenge, as Miriam Gardiner's fateful flight ends in a packed London courtroom where brilliant barrister Oliver Rathbone wages an uphill battle to absolve her from a charge of murder. And in a race with the hangman, Monk and clever nurse Hester Latterly--themselves now newlyweds--desperately pursue the elusive truth . . . and an unknown killer whose malign brilliance they have scarcely begun to fathom.
William Monk, the unquestionably handsome, somewhat vain, but genuinely tenderhearted "agent of enquiry" is back on the streets of Victorian London, investigating his 10th case, a missing woman. Miriam Gardiner was due to be betrothed to a much younger man, a well-to-do gentleman named Lucius Stourbridge. But during a family croquet party, the bride-to-be vanished, apparently fleeing in a coach driven by a family servant named Treadwell. Monk would normally be reluctant to get involved in a simple case of pre-wedding jitters, but his own recent marriage to the headstrong nurse Hester Latterly gives him a newfound empathy for the heartbroken Lucius. Of course, as always in Perry's historical mysteries, all is not quite as it seems. Treadwell is found murdered, and the missing Miriam becomes the number-one suspect. Monk is convinced that she "could and would do no intentional evil," even as Hester connects her to another illicit crime. Eventually unearthed by London's finest, Miriam is arrested and charged with murder, and it's up to barrister Oliver Rathbone to absolve her in court (with a little help from his good friends William and Hester Monk).
With a plot twist around every corner, Anne Perry knows just how to keep us in suspense, right up to the exceedingly dramatic finale. The Twisted Root is a luminous whodunit from the queen of Victorian mystery. --Naomi Gesinger
