Anne Perry. The Carter Street Hangmen (1979)

     Anne Perry. The Carter Street Hangmen (1979) The first in the Charlotte Ellison & Thomas Pitt novels, in which they meet because of the murders mentioned in the title, and end up in each other’s arms and with an “understanding”. Perry is better than most authors at producing a Victorian pastiche, mostly because she doesn’t try too hard. She’s more concerned with serving up Victorian attitudes and values than with imitating Victorian prose. A pleasant entertainment, very much in the Harlequin romance mode, but without that genre’s excessive focus on the heroine’s emotions, and with accurate period detail. Perry’s exploration of character nudges the book towards the psychological end of the crime novel spectrum, but since she doesn’t want to give away the perp too soon, she focusses more the effects of the crimes on the Ellison family than on the clues. Good, but not a keeper. **½ (2007)