What do You think about Highgate Rise (1992)?
A Victorian mystery featuring Charlotte and Inspector Thomas Pitt. Clemency Shaw, wife of a prominent doctor, has died in a tragic fire in the peaceful suburb of Highgate, apparently the intended victim of an arsonist. As Inspector Pitt searches for clues to the murder, his wife Charlotte uses her social connections to gather gossip about the Shaw family and to help him solve the case. Each book of the series (this is not the first, if you like to read things in order) addresses a different social problem of the Victorian era and carries along the story of the Pitts and their family. The reader gets a real flavor of what it must have been like to live in Victorian England, regardless of one's status in life.
—Linda
Part Victorian Jerry Springer show, part clue-less mystery, but unfortunately, rarely believable, if I hadn't enjoyed this book's sequel, (and didn't have two more with me in English language book exile) I might be giving up on Anne Perry right about now. When I read a Victorian novel, I want the people in the book to act Victorian, dammit. Instead, if it wasn't members of conservative and respected Victorian families airing their dirty laundry out in front of complete strangers, it was very recently widowed and ostensibly bereaved men flirting with the detective's wife. Coupled with a murder that was solved because the author told us it was, well, to say it didn't quite meet my expectations is a bit of an understatement. I like when Perry focuses on her Bow Street detective. I feel she has a good handle on him. When we spend most of the book with his wife and her gaggle of silly women (Is your husband working on a case we can meddle in? I'm soooo bored.), though, I feel I've left the time period and a sense of the gravity of the occasion behind.
—Nicole
All the things I didn't like in the last book are continued in this book and the plot just wasn't as engrossing. The WHOdunit was boringly stereotypical, the WHYdunit was just not believable, the great climatic scene was dumb and the emotion of the book was mostly forced. On the other hand, Thomas and Charlotte are still quite likable, their servant Gracie gets involved which is nice for her and Charlotte's introduction to this segment of society through her crotchety old grandmother was different. What is getting a bit old is the way almost everyone who is involved in the church is portrayed. I know that all churches, the church of England in the 1800's included, have their share of shallow self serving people, but surely there was more than one solitary lonely truly good church person back in these days. I know not all writers look favorably on religion, but I expect more from Anne Perry, who is herself religious, although obviously not Church of England.
—Allison
