Commander Monk has seen many awful crime scenes, but when he finds a Hungarian warehouse owner in his office, covered in blood, pierced through the chest with a bayonet and surrounded by seventeen candles, he knows he's discovered a particularly horrifying crime. It also appears there may be a connection to London's Hungarian community, as more murders start to occur. Turning to people who can translate and communicate with the community, Monk hopes to find the murderer before even more people die. And what is the significance of the seventeen candles? Is there some kind of sinister secret society behind all of this?
I really enjoyed this book. I have read all of the books in this series and a few books ago, felt Perry was stumbling a bit. However, the last two have been especially good and up to the standards I expect from this author. This is the 23rd book in the series, so it helps if you have read at least a few books with these characters, but Perry always finds a way to introduce them in some way. Thankfully, in this book, Perry doesn't go into excruciating detail about some of them (by now, we all know Hester was a nurse in the Crimea, for crying out loud!). However, she does tie Hester's (Monk's wife) past in the Crimea into this story, as one of the other characters in the book turns out to be someone she worked with on the battlefields.
I also liked how Perry brought the Hungarian community into the story, showing how Londoners could mistrust foreigners and how immigrants to London could find themselves at real disadvantage (and at times, in danger). Perry also brings into sharp relief the realities of the horrors of war. She doesn't shy away from some medical details in this book, and I appreciated that Hester's friend seems to show signs of PTSD, re-living moments from the war and having waking nightmares. This book is a particularly good example of the research that Perry puts into her books, making the details realistic so that you not only get a better understanding of war and what it does to people, but you feel compelled by these characters' stories.
Also, I wasn't sure who the murderer was until really close to the end, so this was a good mystery!
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