The Twisted Root

Format:	Paperback 416 pages

Available to order

Usually despatched in 3-5 days

RRP £8.99

£7.19

You save: £1.80

Delivered FREE
in the UK

Add to wish list

About this book
Bookseller reviews
Customer reviews

Synopsis

For Miriam Gardiner, at her engagement party at the London home of her fiance, Lucius Stourbridge, it should have been one of the happiest days of her life. But, leaving suddenly, Miriam disappears without a trace. Reluctant to cause a scandal, Lucius seeks out William Monk and tells him that the only lead concerns their coachman, Treadwell, who is also missing. Monk, not usually a sentimental man, is moved by Lucius's distress, and assumes that his recent marriage to Hester Latterly is to blame. When Treadwell's murdered body is found, Monk becomes convinced that his death is linked to a terrible secret in Miriam's past that someone, desperate keep it hidden, has killed for, and may well do so again, unless he can stop them.

Book details

Published
01/06/2000

Publisher
Headline Book Publishing

ISBN
9780747263234

Publisher and industry reviews

UK Kirkus review

When newly married William Monk, a private investigator, is asked by a distraught Lucius Stourbridge to investigate the sudden disappearance of the young widow to whom he's recently become betrothed, dark secrets are unearthed. Perry is a mistress of her craft as she shows us the harshness of a society where the poor have no access to proper medical care and who, if they do manage to scrape together enough money to pay for and survive the rudimentary surgery available, suffer the lack of professional aftercare. The author's understanding of the psychology of all her characters is impeccable and she's not afraid to show us the depravity of human behaviour as the story unfolds, leading the reader through the complexities of her plot to its shocking denouement. Masterly in her handling of both the courtroom and hospital scenarios, her touch is no less assured in her exposition of the minutiae of everyday Victorian life, all of which walk off the page and into the reader's heart and mind. Another no less important strand of this novel is the psychological tightrope of a happy marriage between two fiercely independent people with the necessity for compromise that this entails. This is the latest of several novels involving William Monk and Hester, his wife who nursed with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, which allows Perry to explore the medical and criminal worlds of Victorian times. (Kirkus UK)