Anne Perry (1938–2023)

A murder mystery set in the Victorian period in London and, I discovered, part of a series about police inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife Charlotte. Resurrected bodies start turning up, the first propped on the box of a hansom cab, and confusion follows with mis-identification adding to the Inspector's problems.

A strong thread in the story is the appalling conditions in the homes of the urban poor and the workhouses where they are forced to go if they reach bottom - with women prepared to turn part-time prostitute to avoid taking their children to such places. The Victorian setting is well evoked, not only the squalor and destitution but also the struggle of the respectable working classes such as the Inspector's family; the cold and wet and the difficulty of heating a home, and the balancing of household budgets so that bacon for breakfast means having to take the omnibus or walk rather than take a cab. Charlotte is from a prosperous family and has married beneath her, this apparently being the subject of an earlier book in the series, so she has to teach herself household skills. Unlike most married couples of the period, she and Thomas enjoy a fairly equal partnership, with Thomas having to bite his lip when his so-called betters express misogynistic views. For this is an era when deference to the upper classes holds sway and even the police must avoid upsetting them or risk losing their jobs.

Throughout the story Pitt has to deal with the upper classes with all the difficulties this entails, although he enjoys a more relaxed relationship with 'Aunt Vespasia', an elderly intelligent woman who is related to Charlotte through the marriage of her sister Emily. The story deals with the scandals that some of the privileged are involved in and the lengths to which they will go to prevent disclosure.

Where it fell down for me is in the denouement. Given the prejudices and the difficulties Pitt has already had in pursuing the case, with his superiors anxious not to give offence to the rich and powerful, I found it incredible that he is able to arrest the guilty party. The only witness to the case is a lower class woman - two strikes against her credibility with a jury, who in those days would be exclusively male and drawn from at least the lower middle class and upwards at that. And to compound matters, she runs a brothel, so they just wouldn't believe her. Given the wealth and connections of the accused and the number of favours he could call in, I couldn't believe that any corroboration provided by his bank would carry weight; couldn't he arrange for a friend to say he had been meaning to sell a property to the accused, but then changed his mind, hence the money going in and out of the bank? There was no other material evidence: perhaps it's a matter of public record that he owns a certain building, but that doesn't put him in the frame, given that the only witness to the date and time (the body having not been discovered for a few weeks) is the brothel madam. With all that, it would surely have been much more credible to have it as one of those cases where the police know who did it, but can't bring it to court?

That lack of believability seriously undercut my enjoyment by the end, given that I also didn't find it very credible when we find out who was responsible for the 'resurrections'. Why did the person concerned go to so much trouble; wouldn't it have been simpler just to hide the murder victim, given that they hid another body for weeks before bringing it to public attention?

All in all, good evocation of setting and the main protagonist and his wife are likeable characters, but the lack of a strong convincing plot means this can only rate 3 stars, and does not encourage me to try the series again.… (mere)