Krishna
A Breach of Promise and Whited Sepulchers are two of her many books we have already reviewed. This features Thomas Pitt, the central detective in many of her stories.
Thomas Pitt is brought in to see the body of Dr Hubert Pinchin, a well to do man in an abandoned building in a slum.He was stabbed in the back but his genitals were crudely cut off. He goes to break the news to the family but is also told by the medical examiner that there was another body on another jurisdiction that was similarly killed. The one, the police inspector at that station told Pitt was a pimp. But it also turns out to be the ex footman of General Ballantyne, who knew Pitt from a previous case (or in our case, a previous book from Anne Perry). General comes and identifies the body for Thomas, who is scorned by both the butler and the wife of the General when he tries to visit General’s house to get him to come for identifying the corpse.
We find that Christina, the daughter of the General herself strayed into high end brothels out of boredom with her straitlaced husband, whom the General seems to like. The mother who also says she had an unhappy marriage with the General himself, covers her daughter’s peccadilloes up to avoid family scandals. The son is quite brazen in his talk around the dinner table (for those Victorian times that is) and has to be put in place several times. It is this kind of family drama surrounding the main characters that make Anne Perry stand out from other murder mystery writers.
When a third man of noble birth is also murdered (but not genitally mutilated like the first two), and Pitt struggles against complete lack of evidence, Charlotte takes it into her head to help him, and enlists her sister Emily Ashworth’s help. The go behind the back of Thomas who had warned them ‘not to meddle. But meddle they do.
In the midst of all this Alan Roth, the husband, follows Christina one day and finds that she has been visiting Devil’s Acre! When he punches one of the men, word gets back to Pitt.
In addition, Pitt finds out that the doctor who was murdered has been helping the ladies of the night in Devil’s Acre have discreet abortions and that one of the owners of a brothel was supplying young boys to some rich customers, one of whom was also brutally murdered and his body dismembered in Devil’s Acre. When Pitt got a bit careless after interviewing another owner of a pleasure house, he is attacked by four assailants and stabbed but manages to escape. Charlotte is furious that he was so careless and put his life in danger recklessly.
Athelston, his bumbling boss of several books, asks him to ensure that he does not venture out without two other policemen as his escort.
In the meanwhile General Ballantyne flirts with Charlotte, thinking her as single. She goes to get some war papers and to try and find out if he knows anything. Confusingly, nothing is revealed.
When she finally makes a second visit, Christina is there and Charlotte sees her taking a gun and then Ballantyne and Charlotte follow them to a brother house and surprisingly she goes to the elegant house of Victoria.
The story ends abruptly, where everything is revealed suddenly in a couple of pages. And what is worse, you learn that Thomas Pitt had already (just) deduced that – with no explanation of how he did this miraculous feat.
Anne Perry always have a dual purpose. The first one is the mystery story at the centre of the plot and the second one, in this book, is to reveal the life in the red light districts and what it means to be a maiden of the night.
Frustrating end, not the best work of hers, but still entertaining.
5/10
– – Krishna