Anne Perry is the best-selling author of two Victorian mystery series: one featuring Inspector William Monk and his wife Hester; and the other featuring Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife Charlotte.
This is the 31st book in the Pitt series, and it is both absorbing and almost chillingly timely, as the story opens with Pitt, now head of Special Branch, standing in the shambles of a bomb explosion in a quiet London neighborhood, with two police officers dead and three more seriously injured --- and anarchists, the real life terrorists of the turn of the last century, are immediately suspected. Perry's book, published last fall, cannot fail to touch a nerve with readers after recent events in Paris and Brussels.
And this is typical of Perry, who has a way of creating stories set within historical events of the last century to cast a light on contemporary concerns such as drug addiction, or the yawning gulf between the wealthy and well-connected and the working class poor. Pitt is shaken when he uncovers evidence that this crime was not the work of anarchists but a desperate attempt to expose corruption within the police that sent an innocent man to the gallows. As a former police officer himself, Pitt doesn't want to believe it; but when pressure is brought to bear to persuade him to give up his inquiries, it only stiffens his resolve to find the truth. Perry knows how to ratchet up the tension as Pitt and his trusted associates must risk their own lives to prove their case. Many of her books feature riveting courtroom battles, and Treachery at Lancaster Gate ends with a whopper. This is one more Perry book that, once started, I could not put down until the last sentence.
Click HERE for a review from the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Click HERE for a review from the Book Reporter.
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