Customer Reviews

Bluegate Fields

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the sixth novel in the series and Inspector Pitt has to deal with the naked body of a young gentleman found in the sewers in a very bad part of town. The trail leads him into a web of deceit involving homosexual prostitution -- quite a different matter among Society than the usual sort of prostitution -- and accusations leveled against the tutor of the deceased, who is tried and condemned to hang. With Charlotte's help in the drawing rooms, Pitt must try to sort out who did what to whom and then overcome the protectiveness of the families involved in order to prove it. As with the others in this series, Perry has a good deal to say about life in Victorian London away from the realm of polite society.

Perry's novel shows her at her best and at her worst. Her strengths are in character development, historical background, and social milieu. Her treatment of the London slum areas and the interface between extreme poverty and extreme wealth are top notch. But for all of her considerable strengths, she displays what I feel may be a characteristic weakness in the novel's ending. The ending -- with its quickness and lack of development and lack of integration into the novel as a whole -- seems tacked on, seems an after thought.

I've been reading the Anne Perry novels of Thomas Pitt from the beginning, and loved them. Ms. Perry has a gift for characterization and cliff-hanging plots, and occasionally a bit of description that has me flagging it as an example of really wonderful writing. This novel is no exception. However, I am rather disappointed in her confusion of homosexuality with pedophelia. The two are quite different, and I find the homophobic attitude quite disturbing. Nevertheless, I will continue with the next in the series, in hopes that she abandons her blatant display of this particular bigotry. I really hope this is the last of it; I really love her stories otherwise.

The darkest of the Pitt mystery series, Bluegate Fields is Anne Perry's sixth mystery in the Thomas Pitt series, and named for one of the worst slums in nineteenth-century London.

The naked body of a sixteen year old boy is found in a channel of the sewers, drowned, defiled, and in the first stages of syphilis. Judging by his smooth skin and the contents of his stomach, he is from a moneyed family. Evidence suggests he was drowned elsewhere. When Pitt is called in to solve the crime, the victim's family does not cooperate, but rather sabotages the inspector's initial attempts to investigate. Pitt's wife, Charlotte, turns to her brother-in-law, and, later, to her sister, Emily and Great-Aunt Vespasia Cumming-Gould in order to help with the later stages of Thomas's investigation, which, after twists and turns, and at the last minute discovers the perpetrator. In the process, Ms. Perry gives the reader a dark glimpse of Victorian society, its repressions, its stuffiness, its hypocrisy and the blindness at its heart.

The plot is dark, finely wrought, the characters richly drawn and from all classes, the historic detail, meticulously researched. Few readers will wince at the subject matter, but all Perry mystery lovers will find the book very difficult to put down.

According to the list in the book, this book (copyright 1984) is the fifth in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series. And it's the best so far. BLUEGATE FIELDS is complex in both plot and characterization, with distasteful subjects reminiscent of a "Law & Order: SVU" episode. Set in Victorian London at the time when telephones were just beginning to show up in some of the "better" homes, it presents a very strong sense of place and time. The character of Pitt becomes much more filled-out. I liked the way he and Charlotte worked together this time. The plot has tentacles. Hard to put down! A GREAT read!

This is the first Thomas Pitt Novel I've read. The plot outline is covered well in the other reviews. While the story is interesting, I thought it was rather predictable. There was only one twist that caught me by surprise. Compared to the rest of the book the end comes entirely too quick and with little thought. I got the impression the author was tired of writing and just wanted to be done with it. I am by no means a legal expert, especially of the Victorian system, but there are major shortfalls in the legal aspects the book. These oversights make the plot work but would have never happened. Using the "real" evidence for the first trial as a gauge, by the same measure there was more than enough later evidence to take to a judge and get it overturned. It is just inconsistent. The emotional state of some of the characters is a bit overplayed, sometimes to the point of distraction. If the police chief, Athelstan, was really that excitable, he would have had a heart attack years before attaining that office. On the other hand, it was an excellent portrayal of the young man's (name with held to preserve the mystery) realization of what every one had been talking about, and what he had done. There is no date given for the setting, but there are still a few anachronisms including the lack of use of the terms sodomite and carnal knowledge. I still recommend the book as an easy read, but will not be keeping a copy in my library. Unlike other reviewers I finished the book before writing a review.

Anne Perry has been one of my favorite authors for many, many years. I was delighted to see that the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series is available on Kindle. However, as I am re-reading the old favorites, I am very disappointed by the poor reproduction quality of the entire series. Many words are misspelled through obvious optical character recognition errors. The price of each book warrants at least a proofread of the content. My rating is based on this issue; a review of the writing and storyline would be much, much higher.

The twists and turns of an Ann Perry mystery arealways surrounded by a Dic kens like description of the times.

I had read this book years ago so I thought I'd re-read it because I had forgotten most of it. I really like Anne Perry books BUT the annoying comments by the upper class characters are off-putting. I couldn't finish the book! I got so annoyed at the comments like: "I told it to the other policeman." (What is Pitt supposed to do, run down the "other policeman" and get his comments?

The upper class is so full of themselves. Why can't they just answer the questions and let Pitt get on with it? No, they must state (over and over) "I can't see how I can possibly help you." or "My man servant has told you all he knows." or "No, you cannot speak to my wife. She is too delicate."

Poppycock! I'd like to see Pitt tell these people: "This is a police matter, a murder investigation, and we can talk here or at the station!" Just once I'd like to see these upper crust cretins get their comeuppance.

At least Pitt won't go to the servant's entrance. I'll give him that.

Good Victorian London atmosphere, and I enjoyed the team of Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. But when the boy killed was determined to have come from the upper classes, too have died following an upper class dinner and bath it didn't make sense that they were so eager to pin the murder on a working class tutor and a lower class prostitute. I didn't enjoy the rresolution of the plot.