Customer Reviews

Bedford Square (Inspector Pitt)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a huge fan of Anne Perry. I have read all of her books and eagerly look forward to the next one. My actual favourite series is the William Monk series, but the Pitt ones are very good too. This particular one is a very good example of her style of writing and it would be a good book to read first in order to get into the series. Her writing puts the reader right there in Victorian England as no one else can. I never guessed what the motive could be at all and was suitably surprised with the last chapter. A really tight well-knit thriller.

I'm a long-time fan of Anne Perry, but her last several books have left me disappointed. I had trouble getting started with this one, not because I found her plot lacking, but her writing has become flat and uninteresting. All her aristocrats are arrogant and haughty, all Pitt's underlings speak with a Cockney slang (which is very irritating to read) and she uses the word "tragedy" about 700 times in each book. Pitt is becoming one-note and all her secondary characters seem to blend together. Perry in earlier works drew interesting and unique characters. Now, she seems to be on automatic pilot filling in the blanks with no thought to originality and raking in the profits. While I enjoy her plots tremendously, this book in particular showed that Ms. Perry has fallen into the formula trap and she needs some time away from her word processor.

A dead man found on the steps of one of Victorian London's most fashionable homes kicks off the 19th mystery featuring Superintendent Thomas Pitt of the Bow Street Police Station and his clever wife, Charlotte.

Although General Brandon Balantyne denies knowing the shabbily dressed man, his snuffbox was found in the dead man's pocket. Since he's dealing with his betters in class-conscious Victorian Britain, Pitt must tread carefully as he delves into the dead man's past in hopes of finding a connection.

"Bedford Square" is a story which promises much but delivers little. There's much talk about class differences -- Pitt's constable assistant is nearly blinded in his anger against the upper classes -- and in Pitt's investigation of what turns out to be a nasty wide-ranging blackmail plot, we are repeatedly told that the victims are all pure in character and how least revelation, no matter how false, will blast their reputations so utterly that it becomes tedious. The solution to the mystery is extremely disappointing: neither making much sense, nor is it in keeping with what we know of the characters. A disappointing book to someone who wondered what all the shouting was about.

This isn't her best work but even second best from Perry is better than most mystery authors. I enjoyed it but was able to put it down which is usually not the case with her books.

I LOVE Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mysteries and eagerly await my yearly "update" on their lives, like a summer visit to favorite friends. It's sad to see Great Aunt Vespasia growing older and more frail but she's as elegant and original as ever. Charlotte's determined curiosity and compassionate nature have brought her perilously close to danger again--but this time it's General Balantyne's heart that is the victim. Gracie is more confidently her own woman and, amazingly, the stuffy Sgt. Tellman is forced to re-examine some of his dearly held prejudices. We don't glimpse into Thomas Pitt's heart and mind so much this time, but he's compassionate and loyal to his superior and friend, Mr. Cornwallis, and in his following the threads of blackmail and murder. It is the actual mystery that disappoints--it flows swiftly from scene to scene and carries you along to a conclusion that leaves you scratching your head..."wait a minute...didn't so-and-so know that Mr. X and Mr. Y were involved? How could they not know what they all had in common?" And the reason for the blackmail in the first place is swiftly resolved and never adequately explained. Catch up with "old friends" but don't expect much from the mystery.

I enjoyed this book greatly, as I do all the Pitt series. I have found, though, that it is vital to read them in order! I have not received all of them yet, but I can't keep myself from starting one the moment I get it, and therefore I read this one out of sequence - with consequences! There are references to the occurrences of the first book in which the Ballantyne family appear, Callander Square, but I don't think anything that would "give it away." However, clearly this family is deeply involved in Death in the Devil's Acre, and I have to admit that there are some serious "spoilers" in it! I don't know how serious since I haven't read it but it surely must give away "whodunit."

Otherwise, the plot and characterizations are very interesting... but I felt with this one more than any other in the series that the detectives could have gotten there quite a bit sooner. It wasn't just a case of the reader having more information than Pitt, either. And it doesn't seem very characteristic of Pitt to bend facts to fit his perceptions. It is only by pursuing something that he feels is totally worthless, but necessary as a tying up of a loose end, that he stumbles on the truth. It says something for his conscientiousness, but I felt it was out of character for him to ignore two glaring inconsistencies regarding a piece of evidence toward the end!

The sociomoral theme for today, boys and girls, is reputation: How to build a good public one and how to maintain it in the face of blackmail, given people's tendency to believe anything bad they read in the newspapers about public figures. It begins with a body being discovered on the doorstep of General Balantyne, whose family figured in two earlier books in the series. Exactly why it's there is never satisfactorily explained, but Superintendent Pitt gradually uncovers a web of blackmail threats which the victims would find it almost impossible to disprove, set as they are in the professional pasts of a number of gentlemen. It's never quite clear, either, why the gentlemen in question would reveal these particular incidents to anyone else, and in such detail, in casual conversations at the club. The reader is unlikely to figure out whodunit (or why) until the last chapter, but that's largely because the author seems to have picked a bad guy more or less at random and then made assertions about how things happened with little regard for plausibility. This is the 19th book in the Victorian London mystery series and Perry has been getting more and more sloppy in making the story believable, seeming more interested in exploring ethical and moral questions than in writing a good murder mystery.

As I was reading BEDFORD SQUARE, I felt this was the best of her Thomas and Charlotte Pitt books. I prefer these to her William Monk series. I love her descriptions of Victorian England;she gives the reader a real feel of life in those times. I couldn't put the book down and had to finish it before I could sleep. However, the ending is not as fully developed as the rest of the novel. I felt like she was in a hurry to finish and get it to the publisher.

This book set in London is the late 19th century begins with a murder and ends with 100 pages of snoring. It's not so much a whodunit as a who cares?

The characters are pallid and the plot concerns a blackmail plot of various high and mighties who risk losing their honor. There is much talk of honor -- very yawn-inducing.

There is also the "below stairs" aspect of the story. The working class characters all speak in Cockney which becomes incredibly tiresome after a few sentences of stuff like this" "You dunno nuffink. So 'oo did yer get yer bubble an' squeak from? I can't be getting on wif anything wif you standin' in the middle o' the floor. Spec' me ter walk 'around yer?"

Not only is this annoying and patronizing but it's not even accurate. If one was being consistent, one would say "anyfink' to rhyme wiv nuffink.

Bottom line: great for insomonia!

Anne Perry has outdone herself in this Pitt novel...the sheer intricacy of the plot is enough to keep you turning pages. You have no idea until the last few pages what or who...that is the essence of the great mystery novel....I could not put it down. Her characterizations of Victorian England are superb and her historical research is flawless. What a good read!