The Face of a Stranger

William Monk wakes in a London hospital with no memory of who he is or how he came to be injured. He is, they tell him, a detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police, and he has been assigned a murder case: a Crimean War hero, a nobleman, killed brutally in his own home. Monk must conduct an investigation while hiding from his colleagues and himself the fact that he cannot remember his training, his methods, or what kind of man he has been.

Davina Porter's narration gives the amnesia premise its full psychological weight, conveying Monk's particular horror at discovering himself through other people's reactions. Her Victorian London is rendered with the specific social textures that Anne Perry's novels depend on, the rigid class hierarchies that shape every interaction. Porter has narrated Perry's extensive catalogue throughout, and her performance here has the authority of long familiarity with a world she has helped make audible.