I like the Monk series more than the Pitt series. However, Perry's constantly coincidences are starting to get a little obnoxious. In the Pitt series it's how Emily and Charlotte always seem to find themselves at the party of a suspect before they even know Thomas is investigated said suspect. In the Monk novels, it's how Hester always finds that final piece of the puzzle because of one of her clients. Even over 100 years ago, you can't convince me London was that small. I would believe you if you tried to argue that Perry is the ultimate believer in the Kevin Bacon theory. 

Once again, I find myself completely immersed in the courtroom drama. Rathborne is really the star of these books.

Dates read 6/13/2020-6/14/2020

Book 38/75

These books are so much better when Charlotte and Emily are reduced to background characters. I can only handle so many pages of society scandals. When Thomas is working on his own without the constant meddling assistance of his wife and sister-in-law, the procedure part of the mystery is so much more satisfying. 

One thing I always get a kick out of with these books is the character names. I've worked in a school before. I'm familiar with unusual names. However, the names in Perry's books are something just a little more. Sholto. Beulah. And my personal favorite, Theophania. I'm not overly familiar with the naming practices of English residents but there is something to be said for having characters with names outside of Elizabeth, Mary, Henry, or George. This coming from a mother who has an Elizabeth in her own house. 

Dates Read 6/7/2020-6/9/2020

Book 36/75

Let's try something a little familiar. 

This is the first in a new series, with a new chronological setting, from Anne Perry. Elena Standish is a photographer, but with high connections in the British establishment. She knows that her father is a former diplomat from Germany (indeed she lived in Berlin as a child); she does not know until the end of the novel that her father's father is the retired head of MI6. The events of this novel take place in the lead-up to World War II, chiefly in Germany, and although Elena is not a spy, it's essentially a spy thriller, not a mystery like the Pitt or Monk stories.

As a non-professional in a violent world, Elena is very vulnerable, and some of her decisions (such as deliberately going out to photograph the book-burning) might qualify her, in the jargon of modern fanfic, as TSTL (too stupid to live). However, her principal failing, which might not be so very unrealistic, is relying on whichever nearby male appears to know what's going on. Without introducing any spoilers, I think we can safely point out that not all those males have the agenda they appear to have. However, there's remarkably little in the way of sexual threat to our heroine. She does sustain some physical damage at the hands of the SS.

I think I actually preferred some of the subsidiary characters to Elena. The dynamic between her grandfather (a crony of Churchill, who gets a cameo) and her father, the diplomat who still thinks appeasement is possible is quite interesting, the more so since I think that most of us would incline towards the side of those who desperately did not want a repeat of the First World War.

I enjoyed this. It had a certain energy that I thought was lacking in the latest Monk outing, which seemed to be falling back on formula; perhaps the 1860s had ceased to be interesting to Perry the inveterate researcher.

"Anne Perry explains herself in her writing, in the stories of flawed protagonists who fail the world and themselves but can transcend their past to find forgiveness. They battle their history, the corrupting influences of the world and their own fallibility and self-doubt. It is a familiar literary conceit that, for Anne, has become a default position. Its suspense and resolution are perfectly suited to crime fiction. She writes prodigiously, and with imagination and penetrating intelligence. And until the world finally 'gets it', and she can forgive herself, it is a story she will tell over and over again."

That's the last paragraph of Joanne Drayton's sympathetic literary biography of Anne Perry, born in 1938 as Juliet Hulme, who in her teen years, along with her best friend, murdered that best friend's mother; as Anne Perry, beginning in the 1970s, she has published dozens of novels, mostly murder mysteries, to general acclaim.

Those looking for a straightforward "true crime" narrative will likely be put off by the extensive - and, I think, intelligent - analysis of Perry's writings which is interleaved with the story of her life. Indeed, Drayton conducts a large part of her search for Anne Perry in the work itself, though she appears to have managed to have had some fairly privileged personal access as well, in the small Scottish village where Perry was living at the time of this biography. Nonetheless, whether Perry is just naturally reserved, or whether she feels she has given everything she can give to the various biographical writings and documentaries about her (or both), I get the sense that Drayton did not obtain any very overwhelming insights from the personal contact. Under the circumstances, it makes sense to seek understanding from the more oblique way in which Perry has herself sought to express and understand herself, even while acknowledging that in fiction she can, and will have, shaped and controlled that understanding.

Drayton also spoke extensively to the various people who have been involved with publishing Perry over the years, and from this we get not just their personal perspectives, but also - for bibliophiles like me, anyway - some interesting insights into how the modern book publishing industry operates and has operated for the last 40 years or so.

I found this well worth reading (and particularly so since I've also read a fair number of Perry's works, though far from all). I've decided to look into Drayton's other biography of a notable New Zealand-born crime novelist, Ngaio Marsh.