Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Twenty-One Days by Anne Perry

Twenty-One Days: A Daniel Pitt Novel by Anne Perry --- 303 pages

Best selling historical mystery writer Anne Perry is best known for her two mystery series set in Victorian England, the William Monk mysteries and the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mysteries.   After thirty-two books appearing over  almost forty years, the Pitts made their final, triumphant appearance in Murder on the Serpentine (2017), in which Pitt, head of Britain's Special Branch, is knighted by Queen Victoria for his services to Crown and Country.

This year the indefatigable Perry debuts a new series, set ten years on in 1910. The old Queen is dead, and the Edwardian Era is underway. Thomas and Charlotte's son Daniel, is a newly minted barrister starting on the ground floor of one of London's most prominent law practices. We meet Daniel in the throes of defending his first serious criminal case. A former police officer, who once worked for Thomas Pitt and now works as a private inquiry agent, stands accused of murdering a man who owed him a substantial sum of money. All the evidence seems to point to Roman Blackwell's guilt, and one witness, Oscar Park, has been particularly damaging in his testimony.

Acting on a hunch, Daniel enlists the help of an expert witness to prove his client's innocence.  And just in time, for he is urgently summoned to assist in another, much more serious case in which a writer of salacious biographies of the rich and/or powerful stands accused of the murder of his wife and the disfigurement of her corpse. Russell Graves insists he is innocent, but he is an arrogant and abrasive man who does nothing to advance his cause. The jury finds him guilty, and he i sentenced to be hanged in just twenty-one days --- unless his lawyers can find legal grounds or new evidence to mount an appeal.

The more Daniel has to do with Graves, the more he dislikes the man; his sympathies are all for the victim, Graves' wife Ebony, and two surviving children, Sarah and Arthur. Graves insists that he's been framed by powerful enemies seeking to derail the publication of his new book, in which he claims to expose corruption and abuse of power at the highest levels of government.

Daniel discovers that Graves' book defames the character of two people close to his family, as well as his own father, Sir Thomas; and destroys the reputation of Special Branch. Daniel also learns that Graves physically abused his wife, children and servants for years. He's sorely tempted to let Graves hang but --- he's not convinced that Graves is guilty of murdering his wife. Can Daniel prevent Graves from hanging for a murder he did not commit, yet make sure he's punished for his actual crimes --- and guarantee that his malicious book never sees the light of day?

Click HERE to see the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to see the review from Kirkus Reviews.

No comments:

Post a Comment