A Christmas Deliverance
A Novel
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A courageous doctor and his apprentice fight to save London’s poor—and discover that the hearts of men can be colder than a winter chill—in this gripping holiday mystery from New York Times bestselling author Anne Perry.
“Perry’s Victorian-era holiday mysteries [are] an annual treat.”—The Wall Street Journal
Scuff has come a long way from his time as a penniless orphan scraping together a living on the banks of the Thames. Now he’s studying medicine at a free clinic run by Dr. Crowe, a thoughtful if stoic mentor. But lately Crowe has been distracted, having witnessed an altercation between a wealthy former patient of his named Ellie—a woman that he not only treated but developed unacknowledged feelings for—and her controlling fiancé. It seems someone is forcing Ellie to marry the man. When Crowe’s emotions come flooding back, he sets out to uncover the troubling connection between Ellie, her father, and her betrothed.
With Crowe engrossed in his investigation just weeks before the holidays, Scuff is left to run the clinic on his own, treating London’s poor and vulnerable. In the holiday spirit, he offers Mattie, a young girl in need, a warm place to stay as the winter chill sweeps through the city. Together, Scuff and Mattie must also fend off the police, who are growing suspicious of Crowe’s amateur sleuthing. Will Crowe be able to help Ellie, and will Scuff be able to ensure that he and Mattie—and all of their patients—have a safe and peaceful Christmas?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Perry's fine 20th Christmas-themed crime novel set in the same Victorian world as her William Monk and Charlotte and Thomas Pitt books (after 2021's A Christmas Legacy) features Dr. Crowe, an idealist who runs a free medical clinic on the riverbank of the Thames for anyone in need. When Crowe runs into Eliza Hollister, a former patient he treated after a traffic accident and for whom he has romantic feelings, he's disturbed to see her verbally abused by Paul Dolan, whose father imports luxury goods. Crowe is even more upset to discover that Eliza has become engaged against her will to Dolan, in order to help her father, who's in financial trouble. Crowe's curiosity about the Dolans leads him to probe a fatal fire at a warehouse Eliza's father owned, which was deemed accidental. What he learns leads him to dig deeper. Meanwhile, Scuff, Crowe's assistant, who was rescued as a child by Monk and his wife from a life of scavenging the Thames at low tide, keeps the clinic running. The gripping plot is matched by moving portrayals of the clinic's clientele. Readers drawn to Dickens's searing portraits of the underprivileged will appreciate Perry's homage to those characters.
Customer Reviews
Slow and then a race to the finish
Repeatedly told the reader the main characters worries,raced to the end, and really never addressed all the worries. Marriage does not solve all worries. Nor does it seem love pays a part. Perhaps it s a convenient solution. Christmas is not important in the story, but rather it seems to be a coincidence.