Asesino en la oscuridad (Dark Assassin) Book

I'm not quite sure why I prefer the William & Hester Monk tandem so decidedly over Perry's other Victorian married couple, the Pitts, but I do, although the thrill of the unresolved sexual tension is gone since William and Hester got married, of course. It looks now as if they are about to adopt a street urchin, if I read my signals right. Anyway, this Perry, as usual, flew as much or more on the Dickensian descriptive details as on the plot. In this case, the setting is the construction of the London sewers, and there are shivers from the damp and stink on practically every page. It actually starts to feel a bit unrelieved, even though Perry introduces an aristocratic sub-plot in the "women's side" of the story. (That particular formula - Monk having the "man's half" of the plot, and Hester working her magic on the women - also grated slightly at the beginning, where I thought the setup of having them both encounter the same issue through entirely different channels was a bit coincidental and creaky. However, it worked later on as the alternation between their plots helped give rhythm to the advancement of the story.) There's a twist after the apparent resolution through the trial of an apparent villain (I won't say more so as not to spoil any potential readers), but I was less interested in that than in the intensity of the catfight it spawned. Hester may be anachronistically feminist, but I do find her interactions with the more conventional varieties of Victorian womenfolk - and Perry, to her credit depicts many varieties - to be amongst the more attractive features of this series.

Definitely enjoyed this; would recommend it to those who are already familiar with the characters, but would suggest that readers new to Perry start with an earlier book or two in the series to get a feel for who Monk, Hester, Rathbone and Runcorn really are.