Imagine a race of people discriminated against merely because they are different. They live and work amongst us and have been raising their families side by side with us. These are hard-working people who provide for their loved ones and offer a service to their community by sharing in their customs, food and diversity.

Now, imagine these same people being strategically slain just because they are different by a faceless and nameless killer or killers working through some sadistic agenda. It sounds like I could be describing race and immigration relations in almost any large country today. However, these are the elements at the center of Anne Perry's latest Victorian-era mystery, AN ECHO OF MURDER.

Commander William Monk is called to perhaps the most horrific scene he has ever witnessed. An esteemed Hungarian warehouse owner is found butchered in his own office. He had been skewered by a bayonet, and blood and gore cover his former work space. There are also 17 mysterious candles placed around the murder scene, perhaps harkening to some ritualistic killing.

"There are not many writers out there who wield a pen with such social conscience as Anne Perry does. AN ECHO OF MURDER speaks directly to current real-world issues and does so in the guise of another solid Victorian-era mystery."

The thriving Hungarian population in London at this time is made up of very hard-working and well-respected individuals. This makes things that much more difficult for Monk to fathom who could have been behind such a brutal slaying that just screamed of hate. The victim may have been deceased just two hours before Monk's men stumbled upon his lifeless body. This was not mere murder, Monk notes, but conscious brutality and calculated torture.

Monk has only one course of action --- to turn to the closed-mouthed Hungarian community for assistance in pointing out who could have been behind such a heinous crime. The 17 candles definitely speak to some other purpose, and that act in and of itself has scared away the Hungarian people from speaking frankly to Monk. He ends up finding a somewhat unwilling partner in a pharmacist named Dobokai. When similar murders within the Hungarian community take place, each bearing the eerie 17-candle ritual, Monk and Dobokai realize they are in a race against time to prevent this from becoming an out-and-out slaughter --- not to mention the panic spreading through this normally quiet community.

Meanwhile, Monk's wife, former battlefield nurse Hester, has her own situation to work through. A traumatized former soldier, dealing with much more than mere PTSD, is in her hospital, and she soon realizes she knows this man from the war. It is not his unique name, Herbert Fitzherbert, that alarms Hester but the fact that she thought she saw him killed in battle. She must unwrap the mystery surrounding Fitzherbert and ensure that he is indeed who he claims to be. This being an Anne Perry novel, it is no surprise that this interesting storyline will soon merge with Monk's to further confound her readers.

Monk and Dobokai recognize that the strange 17-candle setup calls to some secret society with a deadly quest in mind. Monk is not easily convinced of this and feels more and more that it may be some type of vendetta against the Hungarian population that he needs to get to the bottom of. Fans of the series will remember that Monk has his own challenges, having lost his entire memory prior to a coach accident just after the Crimean War. This makes long-term thinking, especially into past history, difficult and could very well set him up for failure in a case that is steeped in the sins of the past.

There are not many writers out there who wield a pen with such social conscience as Anne Perry does. AN ECHO OF MURDER speaks directly to current real-world issues and does so in the guise of another solid Victorian-era mystery. Hang on for a wild ride as the Monks pull together to keep blood from spilling throughout the streets of London.