Book Review--A Sunless Sea by Anne Perry

A Sunless Sea—Imagery at it’s best

Anne Perry masterfully links the name of this book, A Sunless Sea, with the poem Kubla Kahn written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797 as she did with The Sins of the Wolf and Dante’s Inferno.  Coleridge was a known opium user in England when the drug was totally unregulated which is also the main focus of this book. 

As opium addiction is described by the author, the image of a sunless sea is a place where there is no light—only darkness, no hope—only despair, and no life—only death. 

The book opens with Monk, commander of the Thames River Police at Wapping Station, and Orme, his right-hand man, rowing together in a boat on the river about 20 feet from the Limehouse Pier, when they hear a blood-curdling scream coming from someone standing on the pier.  As they dock the boat and run up the stairs, the person points to what looks like “a heap of rubbage” but is soon found to be the body of a woman who has been murdered and disemboweled.  As Monk and Orme begin their investigation to determine who the woman was, they assume maybe she was a prostitute who put herself in harms way.  As they search a neighborhood “about a quarter of a mile from the river” they soon discover her name is Zenia Gadney. 

All who knew of Zenia say she lived a quiet life with no visitors except for one man who came only once a month but hadn’t been around for two months.  No one seems to know who he is.  Monk deduces that the man probably comes by hansom cab which turns out to be the case.  With a little detective work, he learns the man is Dr. Joel Lambourn.  When he visits the Lambourn home, the beautiful Dinah, his wife, tells Monk her husband is two-months dead, ruled a suicide by the police, but she doesn’t believe it.  She also says she knew about her husband and Zenia for many years. 

The mystery deepens when Monk discovers that Dr. Lambourn had written a report for the government on the dangerous unregulated use of opium as a reference for passage of a proposed Pharmacy Act regulating its use.  The report was rejected and destroyed by those he gave it to, including his brother-in-law, Barclay Herne, whose wife was the sister of Dr. Lambourn.  The police determined that Dr. Lambourn's despair and embarrassment at the rejection of his work led him to commit suicide.

But, who killed Zenia and what was her connection to Dr. Lambourn?  Monk has found the only person with knowledge, access and motive is Dinah Lambourn who is shortly arrested for the murder.  She asks Monk if he will request that Oliver Rathbone represent her, which Oliver agrees to even though he has no evidence that she didn’t do it.  The courtroom drama plays an important part in this story.  The judge, the prosecutor, and the witnesses all pull the reader toward the anticipated conclusion.

 Britain finally passed the Opium Act in1878.