Reading Anne Perry in post Christmas quiet
In the lull and that follows the holidays, we leave the Christmas decorations up for a few extra days. On the comfy sofa, with the benison of a lighted tree, a flickering fireplace and the fragrance of winter narcissi in the room, in addition to a not-yet-disassembled jigsaw puzzle on the table beside me, I fall into the stillness of the post-Christmas season.
It was in this delicious atmosphere of quiet that I read the latest Thomas and Charlotte Pitt novel. I have known Thomas Pitt since he was available on a library cassette tape. My daughter was a teen then, attending the Langley Fine Arts School, where there was a craze for knitting. The two of us sat companionably together with our knitting, listening to a tale of how Thomas, with the assistance of his able wife Charlotte, solves a political crime resulting from Anglo-Irish tensions.
Now Anne Perry has completed twenty-five novels featuring the Pitts. From a callow and rumpled young man who falls in love with a woman "above his station" -- the setting is late-Victorian London -- Thomas has developed into a middle-aged husband and father of two teenagers. He has also been promoted to head Special Branch, where he finds that whether or not he feels prepared, he must do his best to fill the shoes of his predecessor, Victor Narraway.
I saved last year's Treason at Lisson Grove to read lying on the "Christmas sofa," but as backup, I also got the next book, Dorchester Terrace (Ballantyne 2012), out of the library.
For many years Anne Perry has made the long journey from her home in Scotland to attend the Surrey International Writers' conference. I have heard her speak many times, and each year I notice her between sessions. We have talked a few times; one year, she told me she missed the Saje booth in the trading hall, and the next, I felt moved to give her a tiny bottle of the Saje floral essence I'd shared with her the year before.
My first introduction to her books came at SIWC too. I was browsing the tables when a woman I barely knew told me something nasty about this author's past. In a spirit of discouraging such unsought-for gossip, I immediately decided to buy an Anne Perry. I was just back from a trip to London, and because I had been on that street only days before, the title that caught my eye was Southampton Row.
In the intervening time, I have read almost all of Perry's works. I love the series that features William Monk, a brooding policeman who must live in the present and watch his own every move, since he has lost a great swath of his past to amnesia. Other characters in these books -- Oliver Rathbone and Victorian feminist Hester Latterly -- I found equally compelling.
Her tales of World War I, each with a line of poetry as a title, are loosely based on her own family history. They are also wonderful stories, and with the dilemmas of chaplain Joseph Reavley, focus on Perry's persistent theme of making difficult moral choices. The first in this series is No Graves as Yet, and the last We Shall not Sleep.
Anne Perry is getting ever better at her craft. Treason at Lisson Grove was compelling, but Dorchester Terrace was even better.
Sadly, my Anne Perry season is over for this year. I must disassemble the jigsaw and put aside the books. Duty calls. Fortunately, there will be a new Pitt novel published in April. God willing, I can enjoy this particular pleasure again next year.