Slaves of Obsession

Slaves of Obsession, the eleventh William Monk novel, draws the former detective and his wife Hester into the politics of the American Civil War when an arms dealer is murdered and his valuable consignment of weapons disappears. The investigation takes Monk from a London dinner party to the smoke and blood of the Civil War's battlefield reality, where the moral clarity of the Union cause is complicated by the human cost of acting on principle. Perry uses the historical setting to ask difficult questions about when violence is justified.

Simon Jones narrates with the measured gravity the Monk series demands — a detective whose own past remains partly opaque to him, navigating a world where moral certainty is consistently tested. At just under five hours the audiobook is compact, though the subject matter carries a weight disproportionate to its runtime.