Rutland Place

If Thomas Pitt and William Monk got together and opened a private investigation business, they would starve to death. If there have been less skilled detectives in the history of crime fiction I have not come across them.

Enjoying this series all the same, though slightly less than the Monk series.

Charlotte Ellison married beneath her social status to Inspector Thomas Pitt, but they not only make an excellent and happy family, with their daughter Jemima, they are an unusual pair of sleuths!

The mystery starts when Charlotte’s mother asks for Charlotte’s help in finding a missing locket. Discussions during afternoon visits bring up the topic of small thefts in Rutland Place. It seems there have been a number of them!
A short time later, one of the women from this social group is found dead from poisoning. She had visited one of the ladies’ homes earlier in the day. Gossip picks up, secrets are revealed and things get more deadly.

Inspector Pitt finds is assigned the case. Charlotte finds herself investigating among the upper show more brackets of society, to help Pitt. (Being involved with the police is taboo in upper Victorian society.) Charlotte uncovers some family secrets that need to be kept secret, along with pertinent information regarding the death.

Rutland Place is one of the books in Anne Perry’s Victorian Mystery series. I’ve enjoyed reading books from this series. The characters and interesting, the pace is good and there are good twists and turns to keep the story line and characters interesting. show less

Charlotte Pitt is expecting her second child, but that provides no reason to stop her involvement in a crime. Carolina, Charlotte's mother, has lost a locket. The problem rests in the fact that the locket contains a picture of a man that is not her husband. Wonders never cease in thinking a grandmother might still fall in love and act foolishly. The story illustrates the conventions and limitations of English society. Perry does a wonderful job in showing real people with real feelings and human foibles. The men seem to play minor roles in the stories, whereas the women dig into secrets to reveal a decadent society.

Rutland Place, by Anne Perry, is the fifth novel in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mystery series.

If you enjoy Victorian mysteries with a dark surprise at the end, you will love this book. Even though you may be tempted to do so, don't peek.

The story begins when Caroline, Charlotte's mother, asks for her daughter's help in finding a locket that she cannot find. The mystery deepens when a resident of Rutland Place dies under suspicious circumstances and the subplot involving Caroline and her missing locket interleaves with the darker mystery of death and something else, the secrets at the heart of the lives of the residents. The plot is intricate, the characters absorbing. The end, as is often the case with Perry's novels, is a surprise, show more and a heavy one, as Charlotte peels away the dark secrets of this upper class neighborhood.

Anne Perry has an unrivaled sense of the Victorian age, its rituals, its taboos, its hypocrisy, and rigid class rules and presents an unrivaled sense of place, including all strata of Victorian society in the scenes and characters of the Pitt series of historical mysteries. (fyi the Pitt series starts with The Cater Street Hangman. In its opening pages, there's a reference to the death of Disraeli, 1881. The latest, Treason at Lisson Grove takes place in 1895.) show less

I liked this one. There was a bit of humor and light-heartedness thrown in. It showed more of Thomas and Charlotte's relationship. And we glimpsed some different parts of Victorian Life.

8.5/10
This was pretty slow going for a while as the mysteries were laid out, but the second half of the book picked up considerably and the ending was tragic but fit perfectly.

Excellent plot, characters, timing and dialog. Charlotte and Thomas Pitt are outstanding.

Great read.