The Face of a Stranger

In Anne Perry's The Face of the Stranger, the first installment in the William Monk historical mystery series, this debut of this new mystery would leave you bewildered and feeling cold. For William Monk, he had a serious problem. After a ransom accident, he had hit his head and lost his memory. He didn't know who he was or remembered anything at all, except that was a policeman. Set in the late 1850s in England, his first assignment back on the job was finding out who brutally murdered Joscelin Grey, a prominent man from royalty at the Shelburne Hall. Hard-pressed by his boss Runcorn to find the killer, he needed to look inside Grey's wife, both personal and private. While he did that, he looked for glimpses of memories to help him remember, and what lead to the accident, especially the investigation into Latterly's death that's been deemed a suicide. For Monk, he tried to put the pieces together and see if they connected together. As soon as the memory surfaces, he believes he could've killed Grey. And in order to prove his innocence, he would look deeper and remember the last person who saw and why it happened in the name of the law with a bone-chilling ending.

This was a gripping and fantastic new mystery debut by Anne Perry. No wonder my late mother loved reading books in her series so much. I loved the time period of 1850s England to set the mood and the pace for the crime scene. It had picturesque scenic scenes for the location in and around London from one place to another. I cared for Monk, who had lost his memory and needed to come to his senses and remember what happened, since one thing had lead to another. I did find some sense of pity to the Grey family and sadness to the Latterlys since they were connected from one another. This would hook you on the first pace and keep you reading these long chapters to discover what he had discovered. It's well-packed with drama, non-stop action, intrigue and plenty of suspense to keep you up at night.

Will you come to the Face of the Stranger tonight?