The Twisted Root by Anne Perry

The Twisted Root: A Novel by Anne Perry --- 346 pages

In the tenth book in Perry's William Monk series, set in Victorian England, private enquiry agent William Monk and his bride, nurse Hester Latterly, are just returned from their honeymoon and settling into their new roles as husband and wife, when Monk is asked to search for a lady who fled precipitously from her own engagement party and has not been seen or heard from since. 

The frantic young bridegroom, Lucius Stourbridge, wants Monk's help to locate  his missing fiance, Mrs. Miriam Gardiner, a young widow in modest circumstances, with whom he fell in love at first sight.

All was well between them, he insists; his parents had welcomed the engagement, even though Miriam's bith and background did not compare to his own as the heir to wealth, a great estate and a distinguished name.   

Miriam ran from the party at his parents' London townhouse, along with the Stourbridge's coachman, Treadwell, and their coach and horses. At first Lucius and his family supposed she had asked Treadwell to take her back to her own house, on Hampstead Heath.  But Miriam is not at her home, and the coachman, coach and horses have also vanished.

Lucius is crushed; his parents and his maternal uncle, Aiden Campbell, who traveled to London just to attend the engagement party, all profess themselves mystified and equally concerned. However, when Monk interviews them separately, Lucius's mother, Verona Stourbridge, admits Miriam was, socially, not the ideal match for her son, often over-familiar with servants --- and at least nine years older than Lucius.

As Monk continues to investigate, he discovers the missing coachman has turned up, murdered, on Hampstead Heath.  Indeed the evidence shows the dying man had crawled some distance, and his body was found sprawled on the footpath leading to the house where Miriam Gardiner's foster mother still lives. With still no sign of Miriam herself, the police consider her a prime suspect in the murder. Monk, who was once a police investigator himself, until he was fired for insubordination, finds that solution a little too obvious and convenient. With Hester's assistance, Monk pursues a broader investigation, looking into the past for reasons that explain Miriam's strange behavior. As all good Anne Perry mysteries do, the truth is only revealed in a final, climactic courtroom scene.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

The Midnight Line by Lee Child

The Midnight Line: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child --- 368 pages

The Midnight Line is the 22nd Jack Reacher thriller from Lee Child, and it may well be the best one he's written to date.  As one reviewer says, this is the one that breaks your heart, as Reacher confronts the true cost of war intersecting with the opioid epidemic.

The new story begins where Make Me (2015) left off. Reacher and Michelle Chang spend three days together in Milwaukee.  On the fourth morning, when he returns to the room with coffee, she's gone. Just a note left on the pillow. And he understands why.

So he gets on a bus and heads west. At a rest stop in a small sad town in Minnesota, Reacher takes a stroll to stretch his legs, He passes a pawn shop and in the window he sees a West Point class ring from 2005. It's tiny; a woman cadet's class ring. Why would she give it up? Reacher's a West Point graduate himself. He knows how hard she worked to earn the right to wear that ring. It's not something you'd let go of easily.

Reacher decides to trace the ring back to its owner. Not just to return the ring, but to make sure she's all right. If she's okay, he'll just walk away.

But the trail he finds leads, step by step, into a web of lies, and violence, and desperation. Eventually it leads Reacher to the desolate wilds of Wyoming and a ghost of a town called Mule Crossing. Where he crosses paths with a retired FBI agent turned private investigator from Chicago. Who knows all about this woman and what might have gone wrong. Reacher has his own kind of honor.  If she's OK, he'll walk away. If she's not - he'll stop at nothing to set things right.

Reacher's on a quest for justice. Don't get in his way.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the New York Times. 

Click HERE to read the review from the Washington Post.