Customer Reviews

Paragon Walk

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the third in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series. It's been two years since their marriage, and I like the way their relationship has grown. Charlotte's simple but happy life is seen here against her sister's more affluent lifestyle. The story is complex, like the first one, with a nice vision of the social system and a not-obvious ending. Interesting and well done. Makes me want to read the next one.

Mysteries that involve historical periods can easily be swallowed up by their period dress, distance from our current lives and uncommon mores. In this third novel in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, Anne Perry seems to find her footing more effectively in Victorian England than in either of the two previous books, The Cater Street Hangman and Callander Square, and surpasses the usual costume mystery.

A 17-year-old woman is raped and murdered . . . dying in the arms of her sister-in-law. Thomas Pitt is assigned to investigate. Matters are complicated by the victim having just returned from visiting Pitts' sister-in-law's house . . . making his brother-in-law a possible suspect.

As in Callander Square, the investigation soon begins to take its toll on the haughty heads of the houses on Paragon Walk.

Once again, Charlotte is able to work on the investigation by insinuating herself into the social lives of the walk's residents through her sister's introductions.

The solution of the mystery is a fair one, built up logically from all of the clues.

The story itself moves along fairly nicely, and the book can be read in one pleasant sitting if you are in a hurry. Or you can spread it out if you prefer.

The book still lacks enough action, and the pace of the plot and character developments will strike most people as slow. As a result, this book will be best liked by those who are drawn to the verbal warfare that's often found in Victorian drawing room novels.

In "Paragon Walk," Anne Perry once again delivered a penetrating look at Victorian society along with witty, sharp-edged dialogue. But I felt deflated after finishing it. The solution to the mystery included some silly, far-fetched elements, and it did not answer my nagging questions the way I hoped it would.

In its favor, the book had many intriguing characters. I am glad to learn Aunt Vespasia returns in future novels. As for the nastier residents of the Walk, their cutting remarks and veiled references to unsavory subjects made me want to see them stripped bare and to learn all their secrets. Once again, the ending let me down.

I was also disappointed Inspector Pitt did not do much sleuthing this time around. He spent too much time asking the same questions of himself and sending another officer off to question servants. Also, the novel had too many scenes at society parties, where people displayed their dislike of one another. I almost wanted to scream, "Enough! I get it that so-and-so hates this other person. Give it a rest, already!"

Overall, I enjoyed reading "Paragon Walk," but as I worked through the last 30 pages, I didn't know whether to laugh or to fling the book across the room. I hope next time, Pitt gets to do more detecting and that my curiosity about various characters is better satisfied.

This is the third book in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series and it is up to Anne Perry's usual excellent standard. The plot is first-rate as are the characters. The only complaint I have about this book is that I would like to have found out more about Paul Alaric by the end of the book. I had the feeling throughout the book that we would eventually find out that he was not what he seemed but we never did. However, this didn't keep me from devouring the story and thoroughly enjoying it!

Although I am a huge fan of Perry -- both the Pitt series and the darker William Monk series -- this one had such an obvious plot flaw from the very beginning I was disappointed. But I'll continue to read Perry's work. I love Charlotte's clever way of getting around the Victorian drawing room manners.

I agree with the other reviewers who were disappointed. I too will continue to read the rest of the series, because I really enjoyed Cater Street Hangman, the first in this series. I found that this was just hot as interesting as the first two books in this series. Neither was it as good as the one Monk book that I have read, which introduced me to Anne Perry's writing and made me want to read more.

Third in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Victorian mystery series revolving around Inspector Thomas Pitt and his very curious wife Charlotte.

My Take
While a young girl is murdered, the emphasis is on how it will affect everyone else socially with a number of the neighbors putting all the blame on the girl. Well, obviously she must have had low morals to have invited rape! How do people actually twist their minds to believe something like this? They are like a snarling pack of dogs. Ooh, that's rather mean. To the dogs, anyway.

Of course, the unlucky Frenchman living in the neighborhood is the object of all the ladies' interests but the first one at whom the neighbors point a finger. Everyone kept mentioning the Dilbridges' peculiar social tastes but no one ever comes out and explains what those tastes are. Why would Pitt avoid looking into this?

Perry makes an interesting point that "Without the discipline of work, they had invented the discipline of etiquette". It's true, the upper classes' lives were so boring that they had to create something at which to work. What better than manners so they would have something to occupy their minds as well as a stick to poke at everyone else.

Perry has another passage that I thought was very good on the definition of rape versus love. Charlotte points out that
"A strong man, a man who is capable of caring, does not force a woman. He takes love as it is offered, knowing that that which is demanded has no meaning. The essence of strength is not in overpowering others, but in mastering oneself." While Emily is thinking more of the physical act itself. That Selena's rape is more acceptable in Selena's mind because to lie willingly is wrong but to be a victim is an excuse and having the best of both worlds: innocent of the guilt and yet having the pleasure.

I rather like discovering how Charlotte is adapting to her new life: learning to cook, getting on with the neighbors, dealing with her child on her own. She's doing a lovely job of it. Then there's Emily coping with George's infidelity; quite subtle and very effective.

The Story
A young woman, Fanny Nash, comes staggering across the threshold of her brother's home. Raped and stabbed! The weeks go by and the police remain baffled and in the meantime, Charlotte spends more and more of her time attempting to help her sister Emily discover "who dun it" and in the process discovers more than she wanted to know about her husband and the neighbors in Paragon Walk while we can enjoy our distance from their rapier-like tongues.

It's the discovery of another body that sets everything spinning to the ultimate conclusion after a few red herrings. There certainly was a great deal more going on underneath the surface than the Pitts or Lady Emily ever suspected!

The Characters
Inspector Thomas Pitt is as disheveled as ever while Charlotte is still attempting to conquer cooking. Their daughter, Jessamine, is teething. Together they meet George's Great Aunt Vespasia Cummings-Gold for the first time. I do like Aunt Vespasia! Mrs. Smith across the way helps Charlotte by watching Jessamine when Charlotte goes off sleuthing.

A pregnant Lady Emily Ashworth begs Charlotte for help and support as Pitt investigates her own neighbors on Paragon Walk. Lord George Ashworth has his own secrets to keep.

Fanny Nash is the 17-year-old half-sister of Diggory, Afton, and Fulton Nash. She lived with Diggory and his wife Jessamyn and was engaged to Algernon Burnon. The night Fanny was murdered, Lord and Lady Dilbridge were holding a party. Mrs. Selena Montague is a widow and little better than she should be. There are the Misses Horbury: the tolerant Miss Laetitia and the moralistic Miss Lucinda, and their friend, Lady Tamworth. The self-effacing Phoebe Nash is married to the excessively moral Afton. Hallam Cayley is a widower. Paul Alaric is the dashing Frenchman over whom Serena and Jessamyn are fighting.

The Title
The title indicates the location of the tragedies on Paragon Walk, a street where the upper class lives.

If you like Victorian cozies and lovable characters, this book is for you. With the third in the Pitt series, the author, Anne Perry hits her stride. The story begins with a body in the morgue. The victim is slight, delicately featured, beautifully dressed, her arms bruised, her face barely touched by life. Fanny Nash is seventeen when she is stabbed and raped in Paragon Walk, a London neighborhood of impeccable pedigree, and the neighborhood, as luck would have it, of Charlotte's sister, Emily, and her husband, Lord Ashworth.

Pitt is called in to to investigate. In so doing, he scrapes the surface of society--the inhabitants, their servants, their families--revealing their stories, their guilt, their secrets, their relationships with one another, their pompous ill regard for most everyone else. Ms Perry lays bare the hypocrisy at the heart of Victorian society, the theme at the heart of this intricately plotted, beautifully and accurately detailed novel. You won't want it to end, but end it does, just after the mystery is solved.

A recurring character in the Pitt series, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, makes her first appearance in this novel. A favorite of many readers, this one included, she happens to be staying with Emily and George in their Paragon Walk townhouse. Beautifully attired, outspoken, witty, she serves, perhaps, as the author's point of view, but certainly as a delightful deus ex machina in this, as well as in subsequent novels in the series. One of her more envious characteristics is that she doesn't age. About "seventy or eighty" in Paragon Walk, she approaches seventy in Treason in Lisson Grove which takes place almost fifteen years later. Cumming-Gould, you go, girl!

I like murder mysteries. I blame it on the fact that, at the age of eleven, I stumbled upon an Agatha Christie novel in my parents' basement on a rainy day and passed the afternoon completely engrossed by murder. Years later, it's still my favorite genre. I particularly enjoy reading mysteries that take place in another historical period, especially those with female protagonists. It seems then, that Anne Perry's "Paragon Walk" would fit all my needs. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

"Paragon Walk" is the third novel in Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mystery series, and like the previous two, it focuses on a crime committed in an upscale London neighborhood. Young Fanny Nash has been found raped and murdered, and Inspector Pitt has been assigned the case. Not only is it in a fashionable neighborhood that thumbs their noses at a commoner like a policeman, but Pitt's sister-in-law, Lady Emily Ashworth, was one of the last people to see poor Fanny alive. With the unsolicited help of both Emily and Thomas's wife, Charlotte, the two ladies set out to find the killer, hoping against hope that the grisly deed has nothing to do with Emily's husband, George. Sadly for them, one crime quickly leads to another when Fanny's brother Fulbert goes missing. Shortly after, another woman is attacked on the streets, and the police are still no further to finding the killer. It seems that that task is going to fall to Emily and Charlotte.

As many professional reviewers have pointed out, Perry's novels provide a unique look into the social customs of Victorian England. However, after the third one, I'm getting bored. This featured very little crime-solving and Thomas was almost one of the side characters. I would have loved to have seen more of George Ashworth's crotchety old Aunt Vespasia, who was, by far, the book's most interesting character. And I would really like to see a different plot. This is the third straight time Perry has used this same scenario - string of horrifying murders/crimes in an upscale London neighborhood, police shut out because of their social standing, the ladies uncovering the killer due to their social abilities - and it's getting old. These characters could be used in a variety of unique ways, and Perry seems set on simply writing the same novel over and over. And, once again, there are virtually no clues for the reader to follow and the killer is caught on pretty much the last page. I like resolution in my stories, a bit of falling action, the "what happened after..." bits that come in the closing of a book. These seem to simply stop.

Overall, while "Paragon Walk" was certainly a decent book, it did become difficult for me to finish. There are simply too many characters, most of whom aren't fleshed out enough to make them memorable, and it is a plot I have seen twice before with her novels. I'm currently undecided as to whether or not I will tackle the series' fourth book.

Fanny Nash, a young girl experiencing her first London social season, dies in her sister-in-law's arms in their home on fasionable Paragon Walk. Shy, childlike Fanny has been raped and stabbed. As Inspector Thomas Pitt begins investigating, the residents of Paragon Walk greet him with mixed feelings. They are terrified that a killer may be living among them; for as much as they want to believe a passing outsider committed the crime, they know that to be unlikely. Yet this investigation, like many others in Pitt's career, uncovers secrets that the Walk's folk definitely do not want known by anybody. It also creates conflicts where none existed before, and brings conflicts long hidden into the open. The only Paragon Walk resident who really wants Pitt there is his sister-in-law, Lady Emily Ashworth, who married as far above her birth as her sister Charlotte married below it in choosing Pitt. As they have before, Ellison sisters Charlotte and Emily combine forces and work as discreetly as they can (or imagine that they can) to satisfy their curiosity about the case. And, just maybe, to help Thomas solve it.

Once again Anne Perry offers a penetrating analysis of Victorian culture by using the differing viewpoints of Charlotte and Thomas Pitt, as well as those of other characters, to illuminate that culture from differing social levels. The bored upper class and the often desperate lower classes have far more in common than either could imagine - and, as usual, when the mystery resolves it does so in a foreshadowed yet surprising way. This is the kind of book that forces me to keep reading far into the night!

--Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of 2005 science fiction EPPIE winner "Regs"