Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Unavailable
A Sunless Sea
Unavailable
A Sunless Sea
Unavailable
A Sunless Sea
Audiobook15 hours

A Sunless Sea

Written by Anne Perry

Narrated by Ralph Lister

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Anne Perry's spellbinding Victorian mysteries, especially those featuring William Monk, have enthralled listeners for a generation. The Plain Dealer calls Monk "a marvelously dark, brooding creation" - and, true to form, this Perry masterpiece is as deceptively deep and twisty as the Thames.

As commander of the River Police, Monk is accustomed to violent death, but the mutilated female body found on Limehouse Pier one chilly December morning moves him with horror and pity. The victim's name is Zenia Gadney. Her waterfront neighbors can tell him little - only that the same unknown gentleman had visited her once a month for many years. She must be a prostitute, but - described as quiet and kempt - she doesn't appear to be a fallen woman.

What sinister secrets could have made poor Zenia worth killing? And why does the government keep interfering in Monk's investigation?

While the public cries out for blood, Monk, his spirited wife, Hester, and their brilliant barrister friend, Oliver Rathbone, search for answers. From dank waterfront alleys to London's fabulously wealthy West End, the three trail an ice-blooded murderer toward the unbelievable, possibly unprovable truth - and ultimately engage their adversaries in an electric courtroom duel. But unless they can work a miracle, a monumental evil will go unpunished and an innocent person will hang.

Anne Perry has never worn her literary colors with greater distinction than in A Sunless Sea, a heart-pounding novel of intrigue and suspense in which Monk is driven to make the hardest decision of his life.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 28, 2012
ISBN9781423372646
Unavailable
A Sunless Sea
Author

Anne Perry

With twenty million books in print, ANNE PERRY's was selected by The Times as one of the twentieth century's '100 Masters of Crime', for more information about Anne and her books, visit: www.anneperry.co.uk

More audiobooks from Anne Perry

Related to A Sunless Sea

Related audiobooks

Historical Mystery For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for A Sunless Sea

Rating: 4.064102521367522 out of 5 stars
4/5

117 ratings12 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Monk and his partner Orme are rowing down the Thames on an early morning, when a woman shouts and screams and waves to attract them over the Limehouse pier. She's found the horribly mutilated dead body of a woman.

    As horrifying as the murder is, the case gets stranger and stranger as Monk and Orme investigate. The dead woman is Zenia Gadney, and she was apparently a prostitute with just one customer--the very respectable Dr. Joel Lambourne. Yet this most obvious suspect cannot be the killer, because he's been dead for two months--an apparent suicide. Nor does it appear to be the other obvious but terrifying possibility, a madman killing for reasons that make sense only inside his own head. There are no crimes that look even remotely similar, before or after.

    And why does the government keep interfering in Monk's investigation?

    Perry's characters continue to grow and develop. Monk, Hester, and the boy they've taken in, Scruff, are growing together into a family. Their barrister friend, Oliver Rathbone, is coping with the end of his marriage and an appalling legacy from his deceased former father-in-law. And with the causes of their long hostility over and, in Monk's case, in large part genuinely forgotten, Monk and old rival Runcorn start to cautiously rediscover their old friendship.

    As she often does, Perry also weaves in some of the more challenging features of the history of their period, as Hester, Monk, Rathbone, and Runcorn all struggle with the moral and political complexities as they affect and possibly confound the quest for justice in the death of one unfortunate woman.

    Recommended.

    I bought this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Perry continues to have William and Hester Monk tackle hard issues and this book deals with the Opium War and the increasing problems represented by opium in 1864. Monk must arrest a woman for a gruesome murder even though he has serious doubts about her guilt. His barrister friend, Rathbone, takes on her defense and they struggle to solve a mystery far deeper reaching than anything they had imagined.I don't know how Perry manages to get better and better, but she does. This is an excellent addition to the Monk series.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This might be the best book of the series, at least, so far. When Monk finds a woman eviscerated on a dock by the river, he has no idea the murder will lead to a twisting path of government corruption, opium addictions, and more murder.Often, the issues brought up in this excellent Victorian series mirror current events in today's world. The opioid crisis is widespread. A Sunless Sea takes a stark look at some of the beginnings going back to the Opium Wars in China. It was shocking to me to realize that patent medicines didn't have prescribed doses so that children and others often overdosed; I'd just never thought about it. Addiction to opium has been addressed in many historical fiction books, but again, I never thought about the different ways it might be administered.Ms. Perry is an excellent writer with a good eye for details. Here she's pared down on description some to focus on the story. She builds the suspense artfully little by little, keeping the reader engrossed.As a side note, I'm happy for Runcorn and that he seems to be fully on board Monk and Hester's ragged team of investigators now. A Sunless Sea is a great book in a series that seems to just get better and better.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Monk is brought to a sight along the river edge by screams and what he sees is a woman who has been hacked to pieces. After identifying the body, his investigation leads him to a Doctor who had been investigating the effects of Opium. When Monk finds that the doctor committed suicide several months earlier, he becomes suspicious of that and finds that the Doctor's widow is his prime suspect in the woman's murder. Everything points to her as the murderer but Monk still solicits Oliver Rathbone to defend her while he still hunts for more evidence to clear her.This book really centered more in the court room but the mystery was well developed and the recurring characters continue to grow as real people with real problems.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The courtroom scenes were enthralling and there was a revelation that was completely unexpected. Although I remember learning about (and being disgusted by the reason for) the Opium Wars in school, the look at the uses of opium in England in the 1860s that was very interesting. Hester and Monk may have roles in this one, but the concentration is on Sir Oliver Rathbone. Two things marred what was otherwise a very good mystery: the killer was obvious and it took much too long for our heroes to even think of checking a certain fact more closely.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    One of the best things about Ms. Perry's William Monk series (and the Thomas Pitt series as well) is that the characters are constantly changing and growing. Even though this is a long-running series, there is nothing predictable about what happens to the characters and how they react. Heartbreaking in some case, heart-lifting in others, but never predictable. Ms. Perry's exploration of the darker elements of Victorian society is central to the mystery, as always, but again the author finds new ground in exploring the horrifying history of the Opium Wars. I did figure out the mystery portion before the characters did, but I wasn't living in the middle of the story.

    A copy of this book was sent to me for review
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wavered between 3.5 and 4 on this, mainly because (unusually) I worked out much of the whodunnit aspects before getting to the end. On the other hand I enjoyed the story and learning much more about the start of the drug problem and the Opium Wars. I'll be looking for more of the author's books as this was the first I'd read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Monk, Hester and Oliver Rathbone solve a gruesome murder and mysterious death involving an act to control the labeling of opium. Edge of the seat courtroom drama. Excellent even though some suspension of reason is required for the resolution and the true murderer to be revealed
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very interesting story involving greed, drug use and supply, the class system, political corruption and friendship and loyalty.Monk hears a woman screaming on the docks and investigates to find out someone has murdered and eviscerated some unknown woman and left her like a sack of garbage. In his investigation into who she is he discovered that she had a monthly visitor from a doctor who was believed to have committed suicide two month previously. Monk ends up arresting the doctor's widow who asks him to get his friend, Sir Oliver Raithbone, to represent her. Needless to say, nothing is as they first believe and the upper class resent being questioned. There was a bit of tension when Hester inserts herself into the investigation to help Monk, Rathbone and the accused woman. IMO, I prefer the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series but this is her best Monk novel.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I never cease to be amazed at Ms. Perry's writing, and each new book in either of her Victorian series, or in other books that she writes leaves me somewhat in awe. Not hard to see why she is my favourite author! I love the William Monk series, and this book is by far the best Monk novel I've ever read. And that is saying something because I absolutely love this series the most. In this book Monk and his Hester are again helping their friend Sir Oliver Rathbone who is trying to find justice for a woman whom he knows has been set up for a horrendous crime. With powerful people on every side, Oliver feels like he's fighting a losing battle and he relies on his friends Hester and William to help him see his way through. Monk in turn is stymied by this terrible murder (a middle-aged woman, hit on the head and eviscerated and left on the pier to be found). He engages the help of his one-time co-worker and a man who was his sworn enemy for many years. They both put the past behind them and work together to try to correct a deep wrong. Ms. Perry's writing is lyrical and at the same time spare which depicts her era (Victorian England) like no one else out there. She is brilliant, and her mysteries are never easy to figure out either. As a true fan, I just know that when I pick up one of her books, I am going to be transported to Ms. Perry's world, and I'm going to spend some quality time with some of my favourite fictional characters. I am grateful that Ms. Perry is a prolific writer because I know there will be another Anne Perry for me to read in few months.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I thoroughly enjoy reading Anne Perry, especially the Monk series. I am always saddened when the book is finished and I must read a book not as interesting. This book centers on the opium trade and the awful consequences of opium addiction and usage. In this story, the English Parliament is contemplating the requirement of labeling on all opium, but the sellers do not want that to happen. The case starts with the brutal murder of a middle-ages woman. Oliver Rathbone sets out to defend the accused killer, but the outcome is bleak. Also Rathbone struggles with his feelings for his estranged wife and his feeling for Hester Monk. As always, Perry writes a descriptive and informative novel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Reading this book I felt like I was in that time period, the language, the grittiness and struggle of everyday life. The character portrayals are full and rich and this storyline takes the reader back to the opium wars and the effect of the overuse and abuse of this drug. I look forward to more adventures with Monk and Hester.