Customer Reviews

Pentecost Alley (Charlotte & Thomas Pitt Novels)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Pentecost Alley" is another entry in Anne Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series. It is the thirteenth of these stories that I've read, so it would be safe to assume that I like the series. Perry seems to have a good feel for the period and her characters are well-drawn. She makes late nineteenth century London seem an exceedingly grim place, and perhaps by our standards it was, but other major cities of the day were likely worse (some still are). She sometimes spends a bit too much space on her soapbox expounding on the social evils of the day, something that Doyle avoided (to his credit -- his stories were always concise). Still, the social ills focused on are invariably central to the plot, so this is only a minor complaint. Some of Perry's earlier stories also suffered from rather simplistic plots. There was often a single character with a clearly dysfunctional personality, leaving the reader with only the details to figure out. All that is not a problem here, though. Perry makes it clear in the course of "Pentecost Alley" that she is against capital punishment (an opinion that is not necessarily germaine to the story), but the plot is intricate and intriguing. As public pressure mounts on Pitt, especially when it appears that the wrong man has been hanged for the murder of Ada McKinley, I felt his anxiety. The tension builds very effectively. Although I was able to identify a couple of characters who ended up in a central role, I still couldn't see how it all fitted together until very near the end.

Fans will enjoy "Pentecost Alley" as another chance to spend time with all the regular characters: Thomas, Charlotte, Emily, Gracie, Caroline, Grandmama, the children, etc., but beyond that this is a first rate mystery that any mystery fan can sink his teeth into. I think this is one of Perry's best efforts, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading a good mystery, whether familiar with the series or not.

As far as I'm concerned, Anne Perry's books are keepers. I was buying her books in hardcover as soon as I spotted them before there was an Amazon.com. Now I routinely pre-order them. When I pulled PENTECOST ALLEY off the shelf yesterday, I realized I had forgotten who all but the regular characters were and who was the killer. Some things dimly came back to me while I read, but the story was just as compelling. Yes, there's the usual contrast between the lives of the filthy rich and those of the filthy poor, but I've never known Anne Perry to fail to bring them to life.

Is Finley Fitzjames guilty? The more I learned about his father, Augustus, the worse he seemed, but that didn't mean his son was a murderer. If someone was framing Finley, why? Did anyone hate Finley that much or did someone want to get revenge on the father through the son? The best member of the Fitzjames family is the daughter, Tallulah. Underneath that party-loving exterior is intelligence and fire. She's certain that her beloved brother is innocent, but how can she prove it? While she's at it, can she make up her mind between her life of luxury and a very worthy, but poor man whom she loves but who thinks she's only a social butterfly?

Emily Radley's life has been just as useless as Tallulah's lately. Her husband is fighting for the right in Parliament so they don't have much time together. Her servants are so competent that they could easily manage the household without her. Worse, she has Grandmama living with her. The other women of the family have grown and changed since book one, but Grandmama is a narrow-minded and nasty as ever. It's a good thing we have Lady Vespasia to show us that an elderly widow can still be vital and involved. What Emily needs is to be involved in another of her brother-in-law's cases. Will her new aquaintance with Tallulah give her the chance to be something other than decorative and charming? When things go horribly wrong, as they will, Charlotte will have to step in, too. More than just her husband's career is at stake. There's been an outbreak of violence. Will more follow? Full scale riots? Anarchy? It's a very tense situation. No one has forgotten that Jack the Ripper business only a couple of years ago, nor the fact that the killer was never caught. Don't miss the scene where Emily, Charlotte, and Tallulah forsake their good clothes to visit the brothels for clues. I loved the frank assessment of their chances for success as ladies of the evening. Pay attention to the names of even the most briefly-noted characters. One of them is the same as that of a character in a famous classic novel. I wish I knew if that were coincidence or deliberate.

As usual in one of Anne Perry's mysteries, morality, principles, and soul searching play a prominent role. One of the other reviewers mentioned the author's past, but failed to mention that she was only a schoolgirl at the time.

If you're looking for a book that's fast-paced and shallow, with characters of cardboard, PENTECOST ALLEY is not for you. If you demand more from your mysteries, I highly recommend this book and the whole series.

THE Victorian Era Author has once again done quite well.

This one I didn't like as much as the earlier ones, but that's probably just me. I'm getting near the end of the list and I'm getting worried about who I am going to read next. Thomas and Charlotte, who could ask for anything more? Except maybe somehow get Monk and Hester involved maybe in a flashback. After all the Victorian Era was a looooong stretch of time.

Thomas Pitt is called upon to investigate the murder of a prostitute in the same part of London where the Jack the Ripper murders had occurred, in this page-turner. Pitt's services are required due to the political sensitivity of investigating the son of a prominent family. Although I had anticipated much of the conclusion, the final unfolding of events was nonetheless riveting.

In order to understand the primary characters, it is helpful to read some of the earlier works in the series first. That caveat aside, this is an enjoyable read.

I came across Anne Perry's books by accident a few years ago, and have been thoroughly enjoying each new one that I encounter. Pentecost Alley continues the Perry tradition of melding social and political consciousness with good mystery plotting. I am certainly not the first - or last- to note Perry's wonderfully constructed characters and her heady Victorian atmosphere. This novel, in particular, comes with well-crafted, surprising twists which effectively transform the reader's perception of the events under investigation as the story unfolds. The ending is a bit contrived, but it is so satisfyingly achieved that I simply did not care. Highly recommended.

I've read and enjoyed a number of Anne Perry's books and they always make me glad I didn't live in Victorian times when there were so many social constraints for those with wealth and position, and such short and brutal lives for many others. She does a wonderful job of drawing that place and time and showing how characters wrestle and restrain themselves in order to hang onto their place in society.
The mystery kept me guessing until the end, but at times I wanted it to move a little faster.

This is a five star book as are most of Ms. Perry's (except the WWI novels. I've never been able to get into them. My comment is prosaic at best but I couldn't let the anacronism pass. Tallulah Bankhead was the most famous of all the Tallulahs. In fact it is probably pretty certain there wasn't another Tallulah before her. Her father was the Powerhouse U.S. Senator from Alabama when his little girl was born and he named her Tallulah, a Native American name for a principal river in Alabama. So there is no way that Ms. Perry's character could have been named Tallulah. (It's still a five star read, tho.)

In the earlier books in this highly successful series about Detective Inspector Thomas Pitt in Victorian London, the author often got carried away with her fascination with the period and slighted the solutions to the mysteries she set up, in favor of sociological commentary. This is the sixteenth outing for Pitt and his wife and sister-in-law, and Perry seems to have finally reached a balance between period and mystery plot. It's 1890, Pitt has recently been promoted to Superintendent of the Bow Street station, and London society keeps ticking right along. In the poverty of Whitechapel, however, the torture-murder of a young prostitute gets Pitt's attention because a gentleman's club pin has been discovered beneath the body which implicates Finley Fitzjames, moneyed ne'er-do-well and son of a ruthless capitalist with lots of enemies. The investigation proceeds slowly, with Pitt sifting evidence, and finally comes to a conclusion with the conviction of the girl's pimp, who is then hanged. It all seems to be neatly wrapped up -- until the murder of a second prostitute, identical to the first. Did Pitt hang the wrong man? As always, Pitt's wife, Charlotte, and Charlotte's sister, Emily, poke their noses in, asking questions where Pitt cannot -- and, in fact, going too far by manufacturing misleading evidence. There's a certain amount of stylized melodrama, as in Jago Jones's dedicated ministering to the poor and Tallulah Fitzjames's ministering to him, but it's not too overdone.

In 1890, two years after London roiled in the wake of the unsolved murders of Whitechapel prostitutes by a sexual misfit who called himself Jack the Ripper, the brutal slaying--in this case via strangulation---of yet another woman of the East End streets has society in a cold uproar. Shortly after beginning his investigation into this act of murder, Inspector Thomas Pitt finds clear evidence which links the killing to a young aristocrat named Finlay FitzJames. While the crime scene evidence is clear, Pitt is at a loss as to motive in the violent murder, heartily denied by the haughty and disdainful FitzJames, and while some among his superiors argue for an immediate arrest, Pitt's instincts tell him there is more to the matter than there seems. The plot soon mushrooms to dimensions unguessed-at in the early pages of this capable tale, and before she is finished here, Anne Perry delivers a story of long-fomenting hatred, bold revenge, diabolical plotting, and cold-blooded murder, all set in a convincingly recreated Victorian megapolis at the height of Britain's global empire.

Anne Perry consistently writes good mystery and/or detective stories in themselves. What is a bonus is her outstanding descriptions of life in Victorian England. Having read many detective stories over the years, I find I need something extra to capture my interest and her ability to evoke a long gone colorful era is second to none.