Death of a Stranger

William Monk, Book 13

De: Anne Perry

Narrado por: Ralph Lister

Few authors have written more mesmerizingly about Victorian London than Anne Perry.

Listeners 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.

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.

©2002 Anne Perry (P)2024 Recorded Books

Anne Perry never disappoints

The narrators character “voices” are very scratchy and not the least appealing. I think it’s all he may be capable of but it really detracts from the performance. But since the story is in superb I’m willing to put up with it.

bad reader choice

I couldn't get through more than the first 2 chapters with this reader. The tendency to overdramatize and emote continuously is nerve-wracking. Hester is voiced as constantly on the verge of hysteria, and Monk is voiced condescending and angry. This is the 13th Monk book I have read or listened to, and the first with this reader. This performance guarantees I won't listen to any of the audiobooks later in the series with Ralph Lister as reader. I can't really rate the book overall or the story since I could not get through this listen; though as it is the 13th I've done, I am confident I would enjoy the actual story.

New Narrator…

… performed with a very distinctive style and voices that completely changed the characters for me. I have really enjoyed the series so far but will not go any further with the audio versions.