Resurrection Row (Charlotte & Thomas Pitt Novels) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Anne Perry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2001 | Series: Charlotte & Thomas Pitt Novels

It is a most incredible sight: a corpse sitting at the reins of a hansom cab–and not just any corpse, but the body of a peer of the realm. To Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, this macabre apparition seems like sheer lunacy. Who would ever want to exhume a decently buried old chap like Lord Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond?

A doctor insists that Lord Augustus’s death was natural. But as far as the police are concerned, there’s certainly nothing natural about any of this gristly aftermath. Inspector Pitt is determined to unearth the truth–even if the digging puts his own life at perilous risk.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This 1981 mystery, the fourth in the long-running series featuring Inspector Thomas Pitt and his well-born wife, Charlotte, is one of the best for its balance between the mystery itself and Perry's scathing portrait of Victorian society. It is bad enough that the recently deceased Lord Fitzroy-Hammond has been removed from his grave, but when it happens a second time and then other buried corpses start popping up, the normally unflappable Pitt is puzzled indeed. Is the perpetrator trying to hide a murder or call attention to one? The answer lies in a convoluted but perfectly logical merging of art, blackmail, politics, pornography, and prostitution. Perry (Paragon Walk) delights in showing how much of London, except for a handful of influential citizens, chose to ignore the shameful poverty surrounding them. This provocative tale, extremely well read by Davina Porter, is highly recommended for popular collections. Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Few mystery writers this side of Arthur Conan Doyle can evoke Victorian London with such relish for detail and mood.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Anne Perry has made the Victorian era her own literary preserve. . . . Perry’s work is consistently top-notch.”—San Diego Union

“Perry is my choice for today’s best mystery writer of Victoriana.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“When Anne Perry puts Thomas and Charlotte Pitt on the case, we are in exemplary Victorian company.”—New York Times
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Center Point Large Print; Lrg edition (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585470090
• ISBN-13: 978-1585470099
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,670,104 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

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bodies won't stay buried!, February 11, 2002

By 

MLPlayfair (Ravenna, OH) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Resurrection Row (Mass Market Paperback)

RESURRECTION ROW is the fourth in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series that begins with "The Cater Street Hangman." Once again, Perry creates a fairly strong sense of place with very few details. She uses interesting twists and turns and colorful characters, and once again there's a certain amount of -- let's call it "unpleasantness." Her books aren't pretty. This time we get more insight into Thomas's character, because Charlotte isn't involved as much in this one. And, as with Perry's others, we get a good look at all levels of the class system in place in London at the time. The plot is fascinating and the conclusion is very satisfying.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the better entries in the series -- so far . . ., April 10, 2003

By 

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

This review is from: Resurrection Row (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the fourth novel in the Charlotte and Inspector Thomas Pitt series of high Victorian mysteries, though I've read several others out of order. All of them seem to be a mix of police procedural and social commentary, in which Pitt has to delve into the depths of London's underclass while Charlotte wades through the unpleasantnesses of Society's drawing rooms. Sometimes the latter is better written and more interesting than the former, but in this case the mystery is interesting and also funny in an oddball way. The recently buried keep turning up out of their coffins -- sitting in hansom cabs, or in church pews, or leaning against their own tombstones. All were apparently natural deaths, so Thomas isn't even quite sure for much of the book whether any serious crime actually has been committed. Meanwhile, Mr. Carlisle, an avid and politically astute social reformer, is making converts to his cause of reforming the workhouses by dragooning his social acquaintances into visiting the slums and rookeries. Charlotte (who married down) is a likeable enough character, and her sister, Lady Ashworth (who married up), is well done, but Thomas himself seems to emote too much. Aunt Vespasia, on the other hand, is a marvelous depiction of a grand and starchy old lady who's smarter and more socially aware than most of her contemporaries. Although Perry repeats her bad habit of nearly blowing off the solution to the mystery in favor of sociological commentary, this is a pretty good read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Resurrection Row - Best in Class, December 6, 2001

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Reviewer "last1in" (Seminole, FL USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Resurrection Row (Mass Market Paperback)

Exceptional. All of the Pitt series is good, but this may be one of the best. As an avid reader of mysteries, I found it wonderfully frustrating to get into the last chapter without actually knowing who the killer was. Better, Perry did it without cheating. Once you get to the solution, you realize that ever clue you needed was right there all along, and each false trail was masterfully done.

My only complaint in this book is that Perry padded large sections with irrelevant musings, and several were actually out of character for the person musing. There is a section with Thomas mulling all of the dead ends in a dispassionate mental voice that is completely different than in any other part of the series, and another with Charlotte using the same cadence, rehashing discarded leads. It feels as if her publisher came back and demanded about twenty more pages, and she scrambled to cram them into an otherwise tight and well-crafted book.

On the other hand, her mastery of the period is incomparable, tossing the assumptions and mundane details of the day into the story in a way that draws you fully into a remarkable and fascinating point in history. The characters are perfect and well-realized, as always, and this book introduces one of my favourite bit players--Aunt Vespasia, the Lady Cumming-Gould. Delightful, insightful, intriguing and unconventional, just like this book.