Murder in London!! (Callander Square - Anne Perry)

Member Name: littleemma

Product:	Callander Square - Anne Perry
Date:	10/05/02 (58 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: very amusing, interesting, involving

Disadvantages: ??

When I was younger, I used to read a lot of crime stories and especially Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes, but I had lately almost given up reading them. When I found Anne Perry's "Callandar Square" by chance however, and started reading the first few pages in the book shop, I just couldn't resist it and had to buy it.

The book was published in 1980 but its events take place almost a century earlier: in the 1890s in London, at exactly the same time and in the same city as Sherlock Holmes. Nevertheless, both the author's style and the content of the book are very different from Conan Doyle's creation: Here, it is a woman and her sister who are solving the crimes out of curiosity and boredom, and they manage to do so because they belong to very different classes of society.

The murders of two babies takes place at Callandar Square, a rich area in London where the inhabitants are not only against any police investigation but also try to use their connections in order to prevent one. Charlotte Pitt, however, who hears about the crimes through her husband, a policeman, decides to apply for a job in one of the houses and to find out all that she can from servants and governesses. Her sister Emily, on the other hand, who had married a Lord, manages to get herself invited for tea and to talk to the owner's of the houses and find out about a lot of scandals going on between them - some of them connected with the murders, some hidden by those involved out of fear of losing their reputation.

Anne Perry writes with a lot of humour and very realistically presents the life of the rich at the end of the 19th century - mentioning both the advantages and the disadvantages of their position. Apart from that, she also explains well what it was like to be a woman at that time, and especially to be a woman that was neither particularly rich nor had been married to an influential man. A thrilling crime story definitely worthy of be
ing compared to the books written by the "Queen of Crime" Agatha Christie!

Summary: