Series: Daniel Pitt

Review: Three Debts Paid by Anne Perry

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Review: Three Debts Paid by Anne PerryThree Debts Paid (Daniel Pitt, #5) by Anne Perry
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery
Series: Daniel Pitt #5
Pages: 293
Published by Ballantine Books on April 12, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads


A serial killer is on the loose, and may have a hidden connection to young barrister Daniel Pitt's university days, in this intricately woven mystery from

New York Times

bestselling author Anne Perry.

A serial killer is roaming the streets of London, and Daniel Pitt's university chum Ian, now a member of the police, is leading the search. The murders are keeping his mind occupied, but when Ian learns that their old professor, Nicholas Wolford, has been charged with plagiarism, he takes the time to personally ask Daniel to defend their beloved teacher. For help catching who Londoners are now calling the Rainy Day Slasher, Ian also enlists Daniel's good friend Miriam fford Croft, now back from school and a fully qualified pathologist.
As the murders continue, Miriam can't help but notice inexplicable links that have been overlooked by Daniel and Ian. In their concern to defend their former professor, are the two university friends blind to a far worse crime that has been committed?

My Review:

I picked this up this week because I didn’t know how many I had left. The author, Anne Perry, died on April 10, 2023, which made this reader plow through the towering TBR pile to see what books of hers I still had squirreled away within.

Which brought me to Daniel Pitt, and Three Debts Paid. Which seemed fitting, as my first introduction to this author was The Cater Street Hangman, the very first book in her long-running historical mystery series featuring Daniel’s parents, then-Inspector Thomas Pitt and his future bride, Charlotte Ellison.

The older Pitts are still active and are secondary characters in this later series featuring their son Daniel, a series which began with the excellent Twenty-One Days, followed by Triple Jeopardy, One Fatal Flaw, and Death with a Double Edge.

Back in his father’s day, the stories began with a dead body, as seems right and proper – if a bit gruesome – for a series focused on a police detective.

But Daniel Pitt is a barrister (lawyer) not a cop. His stories generally begin with Daniel taking on a legal case in his still fairly junior position at the firm of fford Croft and Gibson. Not that the dead bodies don’t start piling up sooner or later – whether they tie into Daniel’s legal case or not.

And not that Daniel doesn’t find himself observing one or more of those corpses on an autopsy table, as his best friend and occasional partner-in-investigation is a forensic pathologist. One who has just managed to qualify for her license, in spite of being barred from receiving certification in England on account of her sex.

Their friendship and intellectual partnership has been evident from their first meeting in the first book. The question before them both at this juncture is where that friendship can or should take them. Miriam fford Croft is both 15 years older than Daniel AND the daughter of the senior partner of the law firm in which he works. Miriam is the love of Daniel’s life – whether he can manage to admit that to himself or not. And whether it is worth risking that deep friendship to learn whether or not she might feel the same.

The mystery in Three Debts Paid is threefold, as it should be considering the title. First, whether or not Daniel can win the legal case he is initially presented with – in spite of his client’s terrible temper and worse behavior. Second, whether Miriam’s expertise can provide the police with the key to solving an escaping series of murders. And third, whether Daniel can not merely accept but actively support Miriam’s career and life goals, in spite of not merely societal expectations but his own sincere desire to take care of her and keep her safe.

But neither of those things is remotely what Miriam fford Croft is built for.

Escape Rating A: This is a story with, come to think of it, a lot of things coming in threes. The three debts, that are not revealed until the very end. The three plot threads listed above. There are also three investigators, Daniel, Miriam and police Inspector Ian Frobisher, a friend of Daniel’s from his days at Cambridge.

And all those threes sometimes march and sometimes meander towards each other in a way that keeps the reader guessing until the very last page, right along with those three investigators.

Daniel’s case is a bit of a cakewalk – or so it seems. But then again, it isn’t a matter of life and death – merely a case of pride goeth before a fall. Or it will be if Daniel’s client won’t keep his anger off his face in court.

The “Rainy-Day Slasher” murders, as the press have dubbed them, ARE a matter of life and death. It’s obvious early on that there is a serial killer on the prowl, but the search for a common thread between the victims proves elusive to pathologist Miriam and to Inspector Frobisher. That the third victim was someone whose secrets must be protected, even after death, only muddles the case further and adds more roadblocks to a case that Frobisher’s superiors pressure him to solve even as they take away the tools he needs to accomplish that task.

Alongside that frustration and increasing desperation, the developing relationship between Daniel and Miriam reaches a stretch of uncertainty. There are no established patterns for the future they both want but believe is out of reach. And yet, they can’t stop reaching for it, even as Daniel, at least, is aware that every word and every action is a test of whether or not it is possible. It’s a delicate balance, and it is beautifully done.

I found that teetering balance to be the most compelling part of the story, but that is not to shortchange either the frustrations of Daniel’s legal case or the pulse-pounding desperation and intellectual puzzle of the hunt for the serial killer. In combination, they kept me glued to the story until I finished with relief at the outcome as well as a bit of a sad because this wonderful series is nearly at an end.

There is at least one book left in this series. Considering the amount of time between finishing a manuscript and publishing the resulting book – at least through traditional publishing – it is possible there is one more after that but I’m not counting on it. That certain remaining book is The Fourth Enemy, just published this month. I’ll probably put off reading it for a bit, as I’m not ready for this series to be over. It’s been terrific!

Review: Death with a Double Edge by Anne Perry

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews
Review: Death with a Double Edge by Anne PerryDeath with a Double Edge (Daniel Pitt #4) by Anne Perry
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Daniel Pitt #4
Pages: 304
Published by Ballantine Books on April 13, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Daniel Pitt's investigation into his colleague's murder leads him through London's teeming underbelly to the suspicious dealings of one of England's most influential shipbuilding magnates in a thrilling novel from New York Times bestselling author Anne Perry.
When junior barrister Daniel Pitt is summoned to the scene of a murder in the London district known as Mile End, he knows only that the victim is a senior barrister from the same firm. To Daniel's relief, it is not his close friend Toby Kitteridge, but the question remains: What was this respected colleague doing in such a rough part of the city? The firm's head, Marcus fford Croft, may know more than he admits, but fford Croft's memory is not what it used to be, and his daughter, Miriam--Daniel's friend and sometime sidekick--isn't in the country to offer her usual help. And so Daniel and Kitteridge must investigate on their own, lest the police uncover something that may cast a suspicious light on the firm.
Their inquiries in Mile End lead them to a local brothel and to an opium den, but also--unexpectedly--to a wealthy shipbuilder crucial to Britain's effort to build up its fleet, which may soon face the fearsome naval might of Germany. Daniel finds his path blocked by officials at every turn, his investigation so unwelcome that even his father, Special Branch head Thomas Pitt, receives a chilling warning from a powerful source. Suddenly, not just Daniel but his whole family--including his beloved mother, Charlotte--is in danger. Will Daniel's devotion to justice be the undoing of his entire life, and endanger Britain's defense at sea? As ever, the fates of family and history are inextricably intertwined in this spellbinder from Anne Perry.

My Review:

For all of its early-20th century setting, Death with a Double Edge is a story about power and privilege that could take place here and now as easily and as effectively as there and then.

Not just because many of the trappings of that time could be easily extrapolated to the present. And certainly not just because human nature doesn’t seem to have changed much in millennia, let alone in a mere century.

But because all of the causes of the series of crimes that keep pushing this story and this case forward, and especially because all of the reasons for officialdom to turn a blind eye, happened then, happen now, and quite probably will go right on happening ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

A young woman is beaten to death. A young man is accused of killing her. A lawyer defends him and the system seems to be working as it should. But when the accused is exonerated and both he and his lawyer are also killed it shines a bright light onto a dark deed that no one seems to have wanted to investigate too closely.

The young woman was a nobody with a “bad” reputation who was killed at a “fast” party. The young man’s father was rich and influential, meaning that he had the money to pay for an excellent lawyer – which he did. Although this was a case where justice was actually not bought. The young man was innocent – merely convenient.

It’s only when the lawyer turns up dead of a slit throat that Daniel Pitt enters the case. Because the lawyer was a senior member of his own chambers (read that as law firm) and the man’s death opens up every case he ever worked so that the chambers can make sure that all of his unfinished cases are taken care of. And so that it can make sure that its own hands are clean.

And that’s where things get interesting – and very nearly go pear-shaped. Daniel Pitt, still rather young and idealistic in spite of his profession, is stuck investigating men he respects and even in some cases, reveres. He’s all too aware that murder investigations uncover dirt that may have nothing to do with the crime being investigated but are still dirty and have the potential to ruin reputations and lives – possibly even his own.

He doesn’t want to discover that those he respects have played fast and loose with the law they’ve all sworn to defend. So much of this case is about Daniel’s loss of innocence.

At the same time, this operates on a second level. Because Daniel, as he often does, bounces ideas off of his father, Sir Thomas Pitt, now the Head of Special Branch. These days, the elder Pitt investigates terrorism and treason, but once upon a time he was a beat cop. His experience makes him an excellent, if sometimes involved, sounding board for his son.

But Daniel’s investigation wanders too near that accused young man’s wealthy father, and the elder Pitt is officially warned off. Repeatedly. Even as the case draws tighter around this wealthy man who has money, power, and influence – and whose business is building ships that the British Navy is going to need for the war that is coming.

Officialdom wants this case to die quietly, because Britain needs those ships. But neither Pitt can stop asking questions, because the law they both serve says that one murder is too many to overlook.

No matter what the powers-that-be are willing to tolerate for “the greater good”.

Escape Rating A-: The story of Thomas Pitt and his wife Charlotte – who met over the body of her murdered sister – are the featured characters in the author’s long running series that begins with The Cater Street Hangman. During the course of that series this mismatched pair, gamekeeper’s son Thomas and aristocratic daughter Charlotte, met, married and solved cases together as Charlotte adjusted to living as a cop’s wife and Thomas rose in rank, got himself fired because he has always been incapable of looking the other way, and then rose in rank again to become the Head of Special Branch.

In the details of their life together we meet all of their children, so it was lovely when their son Daniel became the focus of this new series in Twenty-One Days.

While I think Daniel’s series stands separately from his parents’, just as Daniel has begun a new life on his own as a young lawyer, there are plenty of hints from his parents’ storied past threaded through Daniel’s own series, just as our lives are influenced by our own parents, whether for good or for ill. Meaning that if you haven’t read the earlier series (I haven’t read them all but I read many once upon a time), you won’t feel left behind because enough of the details are present in their son’s series. But I remember the whole series VERY fondly.

But this feels like the first time that Thomas has had an actual full-on case arise from Daniel’s legal and investigative practice, and this series and its characters feels like it is established enough that Thomas’ case complements his son’s without overshadowing it – although some of the events that occur nearly bring both of them to their knees.

Everything in the story turns on power and privilege. Daniel fears that his late colleague cut corners in the law, and that he’ll be the one to uncover it. He is also mortally afraid that a man he reveres has allowed those corners to be cut, whether out of greed or because he is no longer capable of managing the chambers that he founded.

Daniel knows that justice can be bought and paid for by the rich and powerful, but he fears that the firm he hoped to spend his career in has been complicit. Even worse, that the father of his dearest friend has aided and abetted the practice.

Thomas, on the other hand, fears that the government that he serves is willing to condone and cover up multiple murders – and he is unwilling – in fact constitutionally unable – to allow it. He knows that the time to stop evil is when it is smaller and weaker – not after it’s been allowed to commit larger and worser acts and has become too powerful to overcome.

What keeps this story going is the way that, as the investigation continues, and the noose seems to close around the one neck that the government wants to pretend is not a suspect, the danger to everyone around both Daniel and Thomas Pitt grows ever greater. As the story becomes a race against time, the reader can’t turn the pages fast enough.

Who done it is easy to guess. Whether they will pay the price for doing it is the question that drives the story – and drives it very hard indeed.

Review: One Fatal Flaw by Anne Perry

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Review: One Fatal Flaw by Anne PerryOne Fatal Flaw: A Daniel Pitt Novel by Anne Perry
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery
Series: Daniel Pitt #3
Pages: 320
Published by Ballantine Books on April 7th 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Two fiery deaths have young lawyer Daniel Pitt and his scientist friend Miriam fford Croft racing to solve a forensic crisis in this explosive new novel from New York Times bestselling author Anne Perry.

When a desperate woman comes to Daniel Pitt seeking a lawyer for her boyfriend, Rob Adwell, Daniel is convinced of the young man's innocence. Adwell has been accused of murder and of setting a fire to conceal the body, but Daniel is sure that science can absolve him--and Miriam fford Croft is the best scientist he knows. Miriam connects Daniel with her former teacher Sir Barnabas Saltram, an expert in arson, and together, they reveal Adwell's innocence by proving that an accidental fire caused the victim's death. But it's not long before Adwell is killed in the same fiery fashion. If these deaths are, in fact, murders, what essential clue could Daniel and Miriam have missed?

As their investigation deepens, one of Saltram's former cases comes into question, and Miriam finds herself on the defensive. If the reasoning Saltram used in that case is proved false, several other cases will have to be re-tried, and Saltram's expert status--not to mention Miriam's reputation--will be ruined. Haunted by Saltram's shady tactics in and outside of the classroom, Miriam is desperate to figure out truths both past and present and protect herself in the face of Saltram's lies. What started as an accidental fire in Adwell's case seems to be linked to a larger plot for revenge, with victims accumulating in its wake, and Miriam and Daniel must uncover who or what is stoking these recurring flames--before they, too, find themselves burned.

My Review:

It’s not so much a fatal flaw that’s at the heart of this mystery, but rather one of the seven deadly sins. They say that “pride goeth before a fall” and that’s certainly true in the case of Sir Barnabas Saltram, who turns out to be the villain of this piece – without ever being one of the criminals that Daniel Pitt defends in court.

Not that he shouldn’t be.

But the case doesn’t begin with the villain. Well, it doesn’t exactly begin with the villain, and in the beginning we neither know that he’s the villain or expect him to keep showing up in the story, very much like the proverbial bad penny.

There’s more than one of those, too.

In the beginning, there’s a young woman playing on Daniel Pitt’s soft heart, begging him to defend her sweetheart who has been charged with murder. Also literally begging, as Jessie Beale expects Pitt to take the case pro bono.

Jessie did an excellent job of picking her mark, because he does, dragging the rest of his colleagues and friends along with him. And that’s where the villain comes in.

Because the murder victim died in a fire that seems to have been deliberately set, while the victim and the accused were somewhere they shouldn’t have been doing something they shouldn’t have been doing. In other words, they were trespassing while planning a crime, and death that occurs while in the commission of another crime is murder – even if that death was not intended.

The only way that Rob Adwell can get out of this frame is if an expert testifies that the blow to the back of the deceased’s head wasn’t actually a blow. And there’s one expert who can make that assertion in court and make it stick. Sir Barnabas Saltram has made his career out of making such assertions and getting juries to believe them.

He might even be right – this time.

But when a second death occurs in exactly the same manner as the first, with exactly the same players involved – except for the original victim – it begins to look like Saltram may not be as unassailable an expert as everyone once believed.

Assailing that reputation feels like tilting at a windmill. But it’s the only thing that Daniel Pitt can do to make sure that justice is done. No matter the cost.

Escape Rating A: I was absolutely enthralled by the convolutions of this story, and read it in a single day, dipping back into it whenever I had a minute. I don’t think I’m doing the twists and turns of this case nearly enough justice, and honestly I don’t think the blurb does either. It’s a roller coaster of a story, complete with twists and turns and sudden stops that feel like you’re going to be flung off the track – only for the car to set itself back on its wheels and go careening around another breathless turn.

A big part of what makes this story, and the rest of the series, work so well is its portrait of the lawyer as a young man. Daniel Pitt, the beloved son of Charlotte and Thomas Pitt, the protagonists of their own long-running series (begin with The Cater Street Hangman) is only 25 as the series opened in Twenty-One Days. He’s still 25, and it’s still 1910 in this third book, after last year’s Triple Jeopardy – which would also have been a great title for this one.

(You don’t have to read his parents’ series to get into Daniel’s. Twenty-One Days was a very fresh start. I’m not sure that you have to have read the first two in order to get into this one, but if you read one and love it as much as I do, you’ll also love the others.)

But Daniel as the protagonist is a VERY young man and very early in his career. He makes a LOT of mistakes. Even when he gets his clients off. Perhaps especially when he gets his clients off, as occurs in this one. His naivete gets taken advantage of, frequently and often. But he learns from each occasion. He’s interesting to watch because he’s legally an adult while still being aware – or forced to become aware – of just how much he has to learn.

At the same time, he’s still young enough to still have that “fire in the belly” to bring about justice at any cost – even a cost to himself or to those he cares for.

Another thing that makes this series so fascinating is that it takes place in a world on the cusp of change, and has the opportunity to both show what is changing and exhibit the forces that are arrayed against that change.

At the center of many of those changes is the person and career of Daniel’s friend, the daughter of the head of his legal chambers, Miriam fford Croft. Miriam is a forensic scientist who was not allowed to sit for her degrees, nor is she permitted to practice, because she is female. At 40 to Daniel’s 25, in this story she comes to the hard realization that change, while it is coming, will not come soon enough for her. She has to find a way to contribute and participate and do the science that she loves, and make sure that it is useful, even if it cannot be under her own banner. It’s a hard lesson, one that is made all the more poignant in this case as her achievements are called into question by a man who cannot bear to be challenged by any woman, particularly her.

Speaking of Miriam, who is certainly an important character in the series as a whole and particularly in this story, all of the US covers for this series (so far) have emphasized her character, while the series is definitely Daniel’s from beginning to end. This is one of those cases where the UK covers (below) are much better and more true to the series.

twenty one days by anne perry uk cover
triple jeopardy by anne perry uk cover
one fatal flaw by anne perry uk cover

 

However one looks at, this is a terrific series both as legal thriller/mystery and as historical fiction/mystery. It contains well-drawn and interesting characters, solves convoluted cases with both wit and heart, and does an excellent job of portraying the era in which it is set. A winner all the way around.

If Daniel’s series continues as long as his parents’ series (32 books and counting) it will make me one very happy reader!

Review: Triple Jeopardy by Anne Perry + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> Blogo-Birthday> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: Triple Jeopardy by Anne Perry + GiveawayTriple Jeopardy (Daniel Pitt #2) by Anne Perry
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical mystery
Series: Daniel Pitt #2
Pages: 320
Published by Ballantine Books on April 9, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Young lawyer Daniel Pitt must defend a British diplomat accused of a theft that may cover up a deadly crime in this riveting novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Twenty-one Days.

Daniel Pitt, along with his parents, Charlotte and Thomas, is delighted that his sister, Jemima, and her family have returned to London from the States for a visit. But the Pitts soon learn of a harrowing incident: In Washington, D.C., one of Jemima's good friends has been assaulted and her treasured necklace stolen. The perpetrator appears to be a man named Philip Sidney, a British diplomat stationed in America's capital who, in a cowardly move, has fled to London, claiming diplomatic immunity. But that claim doesn't cover his other crimes. . . .

When Sidney winds up in court on a separate charge of embezzlement, it falls to Daniel to defend him. Daniel plans to provide only a competent enough defense to avoid a mistrial, allowing the prosecution to put his client away. But when word travels across the pond that an employee of the British embassy in Washington has been found dead, Daniel grows suspicious about Sidney's alleged crimes and puts on his detective hat to search for evidence in what has blown up into an international affair.

As the embezzlement scandal heats up, Daniel takes his questions to intrepid scientist Miriam fford Croft, who brilliantly uses the most up-to-date technologies to follow an entirely new path of investigation. Daniel and Miriam travel to the Channel Islands to chase a fresh lead, and what began with a stolen necklace turns out to have implications in three far greater crimes--a triple jeopardy, including possible murder.

Advance praise for Triple Jeopardy

"Readers may find themselves smitten with Daniel and with the dauntless Miriam fforde Croft, whose relationship with Daniel deepens in this episode. . . . Primarily identified for her authentic period sets and well-rendered characters, Perry writes in what she has called the 'Put Your Heart on the Page' method, with the focus placed squarely on what happens to people under the pressure of investigation. This book is an excellent example of her craft."--Booklist

"Veteran Perry dials back the period detail and the updates on the lives of the continuing characters to focus on one of her most teasing mysteries, this time with a courtroom finale that may be her strongest ever."--Kirkus Reviews

My Review:

In my review of the first Daniel Pitt story, Twenty-One Days, I said that Daniel, his cast of irregulars, and the methods they use to discover the truth reminded me more than a bit of the Canadian TV series Murdoch Mysteries.

That’s still very much true in Daniel’s second outing, along with more than a bit of Law and Order UK, perhaps as the early 20th century edition. Perhaps with a bit of the Bess Crawford mystery book series, or the early adventures of Maisie Dobbs.

While Daniel Pitt is a (very junior) practicing lawyer, the year is 1910, and the case he is involved in has ties to the police, both in America and in England. It is also ultimately connected to the war with Germany that can be seen on the darkening horizon by those who are willing to look.

Not that Daniel sees the larger picture at the beginning. The case starts out rather small – and rather close to home.

His older sister Jemima, along with her American husband Patrick and their two little girls, have come to London to visit the family. Along with a story to tell that is not exactly their own.

A friend of Jemima’s was assaulted in the middle of the night in her own bedroom in Washington D.C. A necklace of little financial value but great sentimental attachment was ripped from her neck. Her screams brought her parents down the hall, and they identified her attacker as a young man of their acquaintance. A man who served as a junior functionary at the British Embassy.

The man claimed diplomatic immunity and fled to his home shores, followed in short order by Jemima and her family, the victim and her family, and papers proving that the young man committed embezzlement during his posting at the Embassy.

It may not be possible to try him in America for his assault on the young women, but it is definitely possible for him to be tried for stealing money from the Crown – no matter how small the amounts.

Daniel Pitt finds himself in the case up to the neck – his own if not his client’s. At first he believes the man is guilty – if not of the embezzlement then certainly of the assault. But the more he digs into the case – and the better he gets to know his client – the more he realizes that nothing about the entire thing makes any sense at all.

Not the original assault, not the embezzlement, and not the murder of the poor clerk who discovered the financial irregularities. Unless there’s something hidden underneath it all. And that the “original” assault was not the originating event at all – but instead the first in a series of increasingly desperate cover ups.

Daniel will have to dig deeply in order to find the answer. Very deeply indeed – both into the past and under the ocean – in order to come at the truth.

Escape Rating A: Reminiscent of the first book in this series, Daniel comes to this case through a family connection. And much of his internal tension throughout his investigation revolves around that family.

Initially, everyone is sure that the accused is guilty, if not of the financial misappropriations, then of the much more serious assault – a charge that cannot be brought forward in law. At the same time, once Daniel takes the case, he has to defend his client to the best of his ability, both to prevent a mistrial and in order to be able to live with himself.

But he’s caught on the horns of a dilemma – his introduction to this mess is through his brother-in-law the American cop. He fears that Patrick may have had something to do with the evidence of embezzlement arriving almost out of nowhere, and he fears alienating his sister if he makes that accusation plain.

At the same time Jemima is having her own doubts, both about her husband’s involvement in the case as well as whether her friend should push for the circumstances to be made public. Even though nothing happened beyond the theft of the necklace, the rumors that will follow the young woman for the rest of her life over this will be vicious and will never go completely away.

What makes the story work so well is the character of Daniel himself. We know what he came from, his parents were the protagonists in this author’s long-running and much-beloved historical mystery series named for them, Charlotte and Thomas Pitt.

Their series begins with The Cater Street Hangman and follows the romance and eventual marriage between Thomas, police detective and gamekeeper’s son and Charlotte, a daughter of the aristocracy. During that series, Thomas rises from detective to his position in 1910, head of Special Branch, the police department that deals with terrorism and treason.

But Daniel Pitt is very young, both as a man and as a lawyer. He often finds himself in over his head, and feels constrained about asking his father for advice – at least partially because he is all too aware that he was initially taken on by his firm because his father requested a favor from the senior partner. Daniel does not want to feel any more beholden to his father’s connections than he already does.

So Daniel comes at his cases from a different angle altogether – although in this particular case that angle results in him calling his own father to the witness stand!

In the end, Daniel solves this case with more than a little help from his rather irregular friends. And that’s what makes it such a page-turner from beginning to end.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

As part of my Blogo-Birthday Celebration, I’m giving away something every day this week. Today’s giveaway is for the winner’s choice of any book in either the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series or the Daniel Pitt series, both by Anne Perry. Both series are absolutely wonderful, and will be a treat for any lover of historical mystery. So the winner can either start Daniel’s adventures with Twenty-One Days, or go all the way back to when his parents first met in The Cater Street Hangman, or anywhere in between, including this most recent (and terrific!) mystery.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Twenty-One Days by Anne Perry

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Review: Twenty-One Days by Anne PerryTwenty-One Days (Daniel Pitt, #1) by Anne Perry
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Daniel Pitt #1
Pages: 320
Published by Ballantine Books on April 10, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

In this first book in a new series, Thomas Pitt's son Daniel races to save his client from execution, setting him against London's Special Police Branch.

It's 1910, and Daniel Pitt is a reluctant lawyer who would prefer to follow in the footsteps of his detective father. When the biographer Russell Graves, who Daniel is helping defend, is sentenced to execution for the murder of his wife, Daniel's Pitt-family investigative instincts kick in, and he sets out to find the real killer. With only twenty-one days before Graves is to be executed, Daniel learns that Graves is writing a biography of Victor Narraway, the former head of Special Branch and a close friend of the Pitts. And the stories don't shed a positive light. Is it possible someone is framing Graves to keep him from writing the biography--maybe even someone Daniel knows in Special Branch?

The only answer, it seems, lies in the dead woman's corpse. And so, with the help of some eccentric new acquaintances who don't mind bending the rules, Daniel delves into an underground world of dead bodies and double lives, unearthing scores of lies and conspiracies. As he struggles to balance his duty to the law with his duty to his family, the equal forces of justice and loyalty pull this lawyer-turned-detective in more directions than he imagined possible. And amidst it all, his client's twenty-one days are ticking away.

My Review:

Twenty-One Days is an intense and absorbing mystery, filled with difficult questions and seemingly impossible answers. And it is utterly impossible to put down.

It may also remind readers, just a bit, of the TV series Murdoch Mysteries. While Murdoch begins earlier, by this point in the series it is nearly contemporaneous with Twenty-One Days. And the combination of tried-and-true investigative techniques with the early days of forensic science, as well as the prominence of women scientists in professionally supporting roles has a similar feel.

But unlike Murdoch, or its own predecessor series featuring Daniel Pitt’s detecting parents, Charlotte and Thomas Pitt (series begins with The Cater Street Hangman and is marvelous), young Daniel Pitt is a junior (very junior) barrister. In other words, Daniel begins his investigations from the perspective of a practicing lawyer.

Which does not mean that he has forgotten anything he learned following his father around, or listening at keyholes and behind the banister while his parents and their friends discussed Thomas Pitt’s more difficult cases as a police detective and later a member of Special Branch.

This story, and this series, open with kind of a teaser. Daniel is defending one of his father’s old friends, and gets the man off. Not through trickery, but through science. As well as a bit of deductive reasoning and a flash of insight. But he proves that the man was not guilty, because the man really wasn’t guilty – he was merely “in the frame”.

Which leads immediately to his next case, where another, completely different man also seems to be “in the frame” for a crime he swears that he did not commit. Unfortunately for this new defendant, not only does the frame fit, but he’s such an unlikeable bastard that the jury wants to make it fit – and honestly so do both his lawyers.

Even after the man is convicted, Daniel is tasked with finding the truth, whatever it is. Luckily for Daniel’s conscience, he is not charged with proving the bastard innocent whether he is or not, merely with finding the truth of the crime, whether their client is guilty or not. And whether anyone wants him to be guilty or not.

It turns out that everyone wants the bastard to be guilty, including both of his attorneys. Daniel discovers that he wants the man to be guilty, whether he is or not, because if the man is telling the truth then much of what Daniel believes, not just about himself but about his parents, their friends, and everyone he holds dear, may be a lie. Or his father may be a monster and not the hero Daniel has always believed him to be.

There is certainly a monster somewhere at the heart of this case. But who? It’s up to Daniel to find out, before it’s too late. Once the client is hanged, the answers won’t matter – unless they’re the wrong ones.

Escape Rating A: This was absolutely marvelous, utterly compelling, and a page turner from beginning to end. If you love historical mysteries, this book, and the series that it opens, look like real winners. This first outing certainly is.

Anyone who loved the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series is going to enjoy this first case featuring their son. But it is not necessary to have read the previous series to get into this one. As this case forces Daniel to investigate his father and all of his friends and associates, the reader new to the family gets all the introduction to the past that is needed. The elder Pitts are definitely tertiary characters here, and it was lovely to see them again, but their past investigations are not truly germane to the present one.

This case is Daniel’s coming-of-age, his biggest step on the road to independent adulthood. He looks at the past but does not live in it. Investigating that past from the perspective of a lawyer and not a cop is his breaking away from it – even as he respects it and loves the people who raised him and shaped him.

This case also introduces the people who will become Daniel’s friends, colleagues and confidants, including the female forensic scientist Miriam fford Croft and the Blackwoods, mother and son, who provide sage advice and investigative assistance in equal measure.

Daniel asks for help when he needs it, however reluctantly, but the logical leaps are all his, as are the worries and fears. He learns that his parents are mortal and fallible, and that adulthood often consists of not choosing the better option, but picking between a choice of evils.

And that just because a person is not guilty of one crime, that does not mean that they are in any way innocent of much of anything at all. Those discoveries, and the need to find them, is the making of Daniel Pitt, and the heart of this terrific mystery.