Southampton Row (Charlotte & Thomas Pitt Novels)
by Anne Perry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anne PerryEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-02-04
ISBN: 0345440048
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Fawcett
Book Reviews of Southampton Row (Charlotte & Thomas Pitt Novels)
Book Review: This series is now officially in decline
Summary: 3 Stars
This is the twenty-second entry in this series about the crime-detecting adventures of Inspector (eventually Superintendent) Thomas Pitt of the Metropolitan London Police in the last quarter of the 19th century, and it's becoming apparent that the author is running out of steam. Either she's out of good plot ideas or she simply doesn't care anymore. Whatever the case, Pitt is no longer a cop, having been squeezed out of his job by the evil machinations of (. . . drum roll . . .) THE INNER CIRCLE. He's been moved over to Special Branch, originally formed to combat anarchists and Irish terrorists and which is now sort of a combination of Nixonian "plumbers" unit and secret police. And he seems well on his way to becoming a proto-Bond with said secret society standing in for SMERSH. Specifically, Charles Voisey (think Blofeld), who was humiliated in _The Whitechapel Conspiracy_ by being knighted by Queen Victoria (yeah), is using his shiny new rep to run for Parliament as a Tory against an inexperienced and not very savvy Liberal candidate. I would expect Special Branch to be backing the Tories, but they've got to stop Voisey from getting elected as that's The Thin End of the Wedge. And that's the reluctant Pitt's job. More than that, Charlotte and the kids have gone off to the Devon moors on holiday and find themselves in danger as well -- though they don't seem to be able to do very much about it. There actually are a couple of murders in the mix, but at least one of the solutions is covered up in the end to protect the government (by essentially blackmailing Voisey). Perry always includes a socioeconomic theme of one kind or another and this time it appears to be spiritualism -- but it's hard to get worked up about something even most Victorians didn't take seriously. I don't know: If the series continues to decay at the present rate, I give it maybe two or three more volumes before Perry's fans throw up their hands in despair.
Summary of Southampton Row (Charlotte & Thomas Pitt Novels)
In Victorian England, a divisive election is fast approaching. Passions are so enflamed that Thomas Pitt, shrewd mainstay of the London police, has been ordered, not to solve a crime, but to prevent a national disaster. The aristocratic Tory candidate?and Pitt?s archenemy?is Charles Voisey. The Liberal candidate is Aubrey Serracold, whose wife?s dalliance with spiritualism threatens his chances. Indeed, she is one of the participants in a late-night séance that becomes the swan song of a stylish clairvoyant who is found brutally murdered the next morning in her house on Southampton Row. Meanwhile, Pitt?s wife, Charlotte, and their children are enjoying a country vacation?unaware that they, too, are deeply endangered by the same fanatical forces hovering over the steadfast Pitt. . . .Thomas Pitt prefers the grim routine of murder investigations to the riskier probing of Victorian governmental intrigues. Yet Anne Perry's Southampton Row again finds him displaced from his police command, this time to foil the political ambitions of a ruthless republican.
Charles Voisey, leader of a powerful secret society known as the Inner Circle, was defeated by Pitt when he tried (in The Whitechapel Conspiracy) to abolish the British monarchy. Only months later, though, he's back on top, running for a seat in Parliament. Under the auspices of the newly created Special Branch, Pitt is charged with learning whether Voisey has any "unguarded vulnerabilities." The odds against Pitt succeeding are high; Voisey may be "shallow, self-important [and] condescending," but he impresses voters as more charismatic and less controversial than his opponent, Aubrey Serracold, who's also hobbled by his connection to the recent slaying of a popular spiritualist. While Pitt's wife, Charlotte, and their family are safely out of London on vacation, Pitt, aided by the gruff but dogged Inspector Samuel Tellman, his politically astute sister-in law, and Charlotte's resourceful great-aunt Vespasia, seeks to solve the medium's murder before it can derail Aubrey Serracold's campaign.
Perry expertly portrays the volatile British political climate of the 1890s, and by making Pitt and Tellman rivals in their investigation, she further illuminates both men's characters. However, Southampton Row reduces the usually intrepid Charlotte to a hand-wringing irrelevance, and the novel feels too much like an intermediate and inconclusive chapter in a longer story arc. Like Holmes and Moriarty, Thomas Pitt and Charles Voisey appear destined to grapple once more. --J. Kingston Pierce
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