Rating: 
Summary: Loved it!
Review: After hearing this as a book on tape, I found myself compelled to read all of Anne Perry's William Monk books. Hester Latterly is one of the more appealing characters out there! I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to wait for the next one!
Rating:
Summary: Believable, compelling and enthralling.
Review: Anne Perry is one of my favorite authors and this is one of her best books. By now, I am more than ready for her hero, Inspector William Monk, to make his mind up about his feelings for Hester Latterly, an independent, non-conformist, and highly likeable nurse who challenges all of Monk's ideas of what (or whom) constitutes the "perfect" woman. Ms. Perry weaves this problem (for Monk anyway) throughout the story and finally provides us hopeless (hopeful?) romantics with a few sops of encouragement. All of the supporting characters are finely and wonderfully drawn (likeable or not) and the attention to detail of the historical period is unmatched. Well worth anyone's time.
Rating: 
Summary: just okay
Review: I had mixed feelings about this book. On the positive side, the Victorian atmosphere and detail are absorbing, the Cockney dialog is well-rendered, if occasionally heavy-handed ("D'yer want me ter say 'oo I got, an' wot 'e found?"), and the mystery does come to an unexpected and dramatic conclusion.
However I found the investigation to be very slow-moving and implausible. A murder has occurred in a dodgy London slum, and several prostitutes have been raped in another. On the surface these crimes appear to be unrelated, but Inspector Monk comes to an "inescapable" conclusion as to what happened and the motive behind them based on, in my view, the thinnest of circumstantial evidence. I could never accept that a detective of his purported caliber would see this as a closed case. Similarly, when the book moves to the courtroom, the defense attorney -- supposedly a man of unparalleled gifts -- is stymied as to how to refute the iron-clad case against him. I would fire that attorney.
Lastly, while the turmoil of Monk's halting romance with Hester and his memory loss may be a satisfying thread for readers of the ongoing series, I didn't think either of these dimensions moved far enough along to engage people who have just read this book alone.
I found John M. Gray's "The Fiend in Human" to be a much more subtle and effective Victorian thriller. This one left me flat.
Rating:
Summary: A great, great mystery.
Review: I read a LOT of mysteries, and the outcome of this one left me stunned. When you read a mystery, you hope to be surprised by the resolution, and this one rates with the best of Agatha Christie.If you've never read Anne Perry, this one showcases all that she's capable of.
Rating:
Summary: Familiar and forbidding setting; ultimately disappointing
Review: Once again, the setting is detailed and chilling in its darker aspects. As a side element, Monk finds out more about his forgotten past. The disappointment arises from two sources: the formulaic repetition of remembering 'all the challenges that they (Hester and Monk or Hester and Rathbone) had faced together in the past.' The second disappointment lies in the "rabbits out of the hat" solution of all the troubles.
Rating:
Summary: What a great discovery!
Review: Once I picked up The Silent Cry, there was no putting it down. This is the very first Anne Perry book I've ever read. Upon finishing it, I went to the book store to purchase all the previously published books in the Monk series. Last year, I read all the Elizabeth George books during the first month of a snowy Minnesota winter. I can't wait to get started reading Anne Perry's books during my first "Maine" winter. Nothing like a good mystery when the snow is falling outside.
Rating: 
Summary: Annoying flaws and inconsistencies
Review: Other reviewers mention small flaws and inconsistencies in the plot of this book and I am afraid, for me, they detracted from what was otherwise an interesting look at the hypocrisy of Victorian London. Unfortunately it is hard to point out these flaws without being a spoiler so suffice to say that the ending was not borne out by the behaviour of the characters throughout the book and I think that, even allowing for the mores of the time, there are elements of a nurse's job that would have required closer contact with the patient than Miss Latterly seemed to exercise.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: The Silent Cry is the best so far in Perry's Monk series. The mystery is genuinely mysterious, the period color superb, the characters well-developed and fully realized. The nurse Hester Latterly, Monk himself, and the other returning characters are as engaging and realistic as ever, and Perry's dialogue, as always, sounds like real Victorian people having real Victorian conversations. The book is slightly flawed by some minor incononsistencies in the plot, mostly having to do with the injuries to Rhys Duff, but these are not very troubling. The picture Perry paints of Victorian London and the social issues and manners of the time would make the book worth reading even if it weren't an outstanding mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Best of the Monk series
Review: The Silent Cry is the best so far in Perry's Monk series. The mystery is genuinely mysterious, the period color superb, the characters well-developed and fully realized. The nurse Hester Latterly, Monk himself, and the other returning characters are as engaging and realistic as ever, and Perry's dialogue, as always, sounds like real Victorian people having real Victorian conversations. The book is slightly flawed by some minor incononsistencies in the plot, mostly having to do with the injuries to Rhys Duff, but these are not very troubling. The picture Perry paints of Victorian London and the social issues and manners of the time would make the book worth reading even if it weren't an outstanding mystery.
Rating: 
Summary: Still very good but...
Review: The slums of Victorian London is a dangerous place where a man with cash can purchase anything. Leighton Duff is just a man. However, something must have went wrong because the renowned solicitor is found beaten to death with his son Rhys lying barely alive right next to him. As a frustrated Rhys begins to heal under the care of nurse Hester Latterly, he is unable to speak and with his broken hands unable to write. The police are convinced that Rhys killed his father, but Hester is not. She hires Rhys a barrister, who employs investigator William Monk, Hester's lover, to uncover the truth. As Rhys faces murder charges in a courtroom, William soon finds a connection between Leighton's death, and other murders and rapes, but that does not prove whether Rhys committed patricide or not. William must continue to dig in the slums if he is to uncover the identify of the killer, who still may turn out to be his client's client. The eighth entry in the William Monk darker side of Victoria England is an interesting who-done-it because of the historical perspective that sheds light on what has historically become an age of morality. William remains an intriguing, brooding hero and the support cats is top rate. However, readers of the series may find THE SILENT CRY seem a bit stale as nothing new has been added to what has been a wonderful historical mystery series. Harriet Klausner
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