Inspector William Monk is a fictional character created by the writer Anne Perry and hero of a series of books introduced in 1990.
In Dark Assassin, Monk joined the Thames River Police to pay a debt to a friend who died on a previous case.
William Monk is a clever man who wields irony and sarcasm with considerable skill while remaining obstinate, proud, and impulsive.
This normally disastrous combination of attributes (for which he was dismissed from the police force) is offset by his intelligence, unswerving sense of justice and humanity to those he deems worthy.
While Monk lives in the Victorian era, his disregard for social conventions (openly suspecting the gentry instead of the servants in A Dangerous Mourning, and consistently ignoring class distinctions) imbues him with the power of a true believer and gives him access to multiple layers of society, which aids his tireless efforts.