Dark Assassin

Dark Assassin, by Anne Perry, is a murder mystery set in the Victorian era of London. Since the book is also written in the dialect of that time and place, it was difficult for this skimming speed reader to follow at times.

The main character is William Monk, a Thames River Police superintendent, who witnesses a couple in a heated discussion fall from the Waterloo Bridge into the icy waters. Monk's subsequent investigation into their deaths uncovers a mysterious connection to the woman's family, her father's suicide and the new sewer system being built beneath London.

To solve the mystery, Monk enlists the help of an eclectic mix of people - Hester, his wife and former army nurse, Orme, a subordinate police officer, Runcorn, a fellow police superintendent, Rathbone, a lawyer, Crow, a doctor to the poor, Scuff, a mudlark (someone who scavenges the river at low tide), and Sutton the rat catcher and his dog Snoot. From the world of the powerful and wealthy to the dark world of sewer tunnels, seedy characters and starving people, impending danger awaits them.

First Dawn

Judith Miller's First Dawn is based upon the settlement of two western Kansas towns in the post civil war era.  Nicodemus was predominately settled by African American sharecroppers from Kentucky while Hill City was being settled by Caucasians. Although the story is fictional, the author notes that she made every attempt to accurately portray the harsh circumstances of the frontier settlers.

The story revolves around a small group of first settlers led by Ezekiel Harban and his three daughters, Thomas Grayson, a young man with a secret past, and Miss Hattie, the group's matriarch. The group was sold parcels of land near a town called Nicodemus; however,  when they arrive at an open prairie, they find no buildings and limited supplies. The settlers that stay and fight for the dream of landownership and freedom struggle to survive their first winter on the prairie.

Coinciding with the settlement of Nicodemus is the settlement of Hill City where Dr. Samuel Boyle moves his family. The doctor soon develops a relationship with the people of Nicodemus that bonds his family and the two frontier settlements together.