An Echo Of Murder by Anne Perry

 

Inspector William Monk is called to the scene of a murder.  It is in the Hungarian section of London and the victim is a Hungarian who has been in London over twenty years.  He has been stabbed, his fingers broken.  Seventeen candles have been quenched in his blood and left around the room.  He and his assistant, Hooper start the investigation.

Had the man offended someone or is it a vendetta against Hungarians, a hate crime?  Inspector Monk isn't sure but when a second man is found murdered the exact same way, he starts to favor the hate crime motive.  Monk is forced to use translators from the community, although he doesn't know if he trusts that they are telling him everything they learn.  

Monk and his wife, Hester, had adopted a mudlark boy years before.  Scuff as he is known, is now almost a man and training to be a doctor.  In the process of his work, he finds an Englishman who is a former doctor from the Crimean War who knows Hester.  After the war, where he was left for dead, he spent years in Hungary and can also serve as a translator.  But Fitzherbert has mental issues and soon he is a suspect himself in the gruesome murders.  Can Monk find the murderer?

Anne Perry has written several series in the Victorian England time period.  There are twenty-three books in this series and this one is number twenty-two.  It can be read as a stand alone but there are references to events from earlier books so some readers may prefer to read the series in order.  Monk is an effective leader of his men but the real interest in this book is Hester and her relationships with her birth family, her adopted son and the doctor she knew when she worked as a nurse in the Crimean War.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.