A Sudden, Fearful Death by Anne Perry

We've dealt with coercion, deception of honor, sodomy, and pedophilia.  Why not move onto rape and women's rights?  I'm starting to wonder if Perry's need to shake up the social cauldron is just ruining this series.

A nurse that Hester knew in the Crimea is found stuffed into a laundry chute at Royal Free Hospital.  All the staff are suspects, but everyone certainly looks with more scrutiny at the nurses than the respectable doctors.  We get into yet another status argument of women's capabilities--ad nauseam. 

The debate of man versus woman is the sole purpose of the entire case, which again spends most of the story being a courtroom drama with very little detective work.  In fact, being a nurse's death, we have Hester at the front of the novel and Monk barely present.

Not that I'm not grateful to be away from the amnesic suffering of Monk, but this is "A William Monk novel."  I really expect there to be more detective work and less legal argument.

I'm really started to fatigue of this series.  How I was hoping to find an excellent Victorian detective series with some morals.