Farriers' Lane [Hardcover]

Anne Perry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 23, 1993

"Gripping and intense...Her characters are authentically and appealingly drawn, and her plot is sinister."
BOOKLIST
When a distinguished judge dies of opium poisoning, the crucifixion five years before of Kingsley Blaine is brought back into the public eye, and it is screaming for revenge. The police had arrested a Jewish actor, who was soon condemend to hang.
Police Inspector Thomas Pitt, investigating the judge's death, is drawn into the sensational murder, because it appears the judge was about to reopen the earlier case. He receives curiously little help from his colleagues on the force, but his wife, Charlotte, gleans from her social engagements startling insights into the women in both cases. And slowly both Thomas and Charlotte begin to reach the same sinister and deeply dangerous truth....
SELECTED BY THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB


From the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Perry's established audience will clamor for this newest Inspector Pitt offering. Pitt's investigation into the death of a judge leads him to a notorious, unsolved crucifixion murder. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/92.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

In this 13th outing for Victorian-era Police Inspector Thomas Pitt and his well-born wife Charlotte (Belgrave Square, etc.), it's Gracie, the Pitt maid of all work, who uncovers the most telling and dramatic clue. The story starts with the poisoning murder of Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Stafford, in his box at the theater. Pitt's job is to determine whether the motive is connected to the hanging execution, five years before, of Aaron Godman, convicted of a particularly gruesome killing that roused anti-Semitic hysteria at the time. On the day of his death, Stafford had visited several of the lawyers involved in the Godman trial and subsequent appeal. Had he found something that might clear Godman's name--the goal of a persistent campaign by Godman's actress sister Tamar? Could the discreet affair between Stafford's wife Juniper and lawyer Adolphus Pryce have a bearing on the crime? When Constable Paterson, a major witness in Godman's trial, is found hanged in his bachelor lodgings, the case assumes an urgency that pushes Gracie to the impulsive act that marks the beginning of the end. Perry's expert hand with the Victorian scene is verbosely overplayed here, as is the florid, not-always-convincing plot. The same mixture, then, but suffering an attack of bloat. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 374 pages
• Publisher: Fawcett; 1st edition (March 23, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449905691
• ISBN-13: 978-0449905692
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,421,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anne Perry is the bestselling author of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England: the William Monk novels, including Dark Assassin and The Shifting Tide, and the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels, including The Cater Street Hangman, Calandar Square, Buckingham Palace Gardens and Long Spoon Lane. She is also the author of the World War I novels No Graves As Yet, Shoulder the Sky, Angels in the Gloom, At Some Disputed Barricade, and We Shall Not Sleep, as well as six holiday novels, most recently A Christmas Grace. Anne Perry lives in Scotland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This one baffled me! One of the best in the Pitt series, July 17, 2000

By 

drdebs (CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Farriers' Lane (Mass Market Paperback)

Even though I'm familiar with Anne Perry's rhythms as a writer, her characters, her fascination with the secrets people keep, and her addiction to slipping messages about today's prejudices into her books on 19th-century England, I thoroughly enjoyed Farrier's Lane, and was baffled until the very end!

While Thomas and Charlotte Pitt enjoy a rare night at the theatre, an appeals court judge dies of a seeming heart attack in a nearby box. However, the death is much more suspicious than it seemed at first and opium poisoning is suspected. But who would poison Judge Stafford? There are many suspects: his wife Juniper, his wife's lover, or even people involved in a five-year old case in Farrier's Lane. No matter how hard Thomas Pitt tries to solve the case by exploring more up-to-date possibilities, Charlotte continues to be preoccupied with a murder and crucifixion in Farrier's Lane. Ugly motives like anti-Semitism and the rush to judgement eventually disclose the murderer of Judge Stafford and the miscarriage of justice that happened five years earlier.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hang someone to quiet the public, June 11, 2002

By 

Fred Camfield (Vicksburg, MS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Farriers' Lane (Mass Market Paperback)

This novel is somewhat slow reading, perhaps because there seems to be an excess of extraneous details, e.g., you may learn more than you want about baking fruitcakes. On the other hand, some details related to the case never seem to be fully explained. The plot is somewhat transparent for a whodunit, i.e., you can guess the identity of villains before they are exposed.

The setting is London in 1889. Five years earlier a brutal murder had outraged the public. Police were previously criticized for not catching Jack the Ripper. Pressures for an arrest in this case led to the conviction and hanging of a Jewish actor. Anti-semitism had run high with attacks on Jews and Jewish owned businesses. Now questions have been raised.

A Justice who had served on the appeals court for the case is looking into it again. When he dies during a theatre performance, Inspector Thomas Pitt is assigned to investigate, and he re-examines the old case the Justice was reviewing. There is strong pressure not to rock the boat. A reversal in the five-year old case would embarass many people from individual policemen to Justices of the appeals court. Some surprising facts are revealed as the case draws to its conclusion. As a sidelight, Charlotte's maid Gracie acquires a young admirer.

Like other novels in this series, we are provided with a picture of Victorian era society in London. The novel has some amount of violence and some references to sexual encounters.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the most successful of the series, April 23, 2008

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Farriers' Lane (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the thirteenth outing for Inspector Thomas Pitt of the Metropolitan Police in London of 1890 -- and also his last before being promoted to Superintendent of the Bow Street station. The social theme this time (Perry always includes one) is the superstitious viciousness of Victorian antisemitism and the violence that sometimes resulted. Five years before, a gentleman was not only murdered in a blacksmith's yard at night, he was crucified to the stable door with horseshoe nails. Only a Jew would do that, right? Public horror, combined with a rush to judgment on the part of the police and the courts, results in the hanging of an actor whose sister has been agitating ever since to prove him innocent. Then Pitt nearly witnesses the death by poisoning of one of the appeals court judges at the theatre one evening, and the whole thing has to be reopened, whether anyone likes it or not. His wife, Charlotte, takes part together with her mother, Caroline (sister Emily is off in the country, pregnant) -- who has also developed an unfortunate attachment to another Jewish actor, about which Charlotte is naturally upset. The investigation of what eventually becomes three murders is interestingly done -- and without the deus ex machina of the Inner Circle, this time.