The Cater Street Hangman (Charlotte and Thomas Pitt #1) Review

While the Ellison girls were out paying calls and drinking tea like proper Victorian ladies, a maid in their household was strangled to death.

The quiet and young Inspector Pitt investigates the scene and finds no one above suspicion. As his intense questioning causes many a composed facade to crumble, Pitt finds himself curiously drawn to pretty Charlotte Ellison.

​Yet, a romance between a society girl and so unsuitable a suitor was impossible in the midst of a murder. 

This series has 32 books, spanning over twenty years, all set in the Victorian era (1881 in fact). I'm a bit conflicted about this series. I'm on book six, and I don’t know if I like it or not. I rated the first book as a four (3.5 stars to be honest), and the rest as three. I'm not sure if I want to continue for twenty-seven more books. Perry has won the Edgar Award, which is usually a good indication for me. I tend to love Edgar Award winners. 

Anne Perry has had an unusual path to authorship. I was unaware of her story before reading (she was involved in a murder as a child), and I'm not sure it made a bit of difference to be honest in how I view the work. Usually, I cannot separate the art from the artist.

This book (and every book in the series) has different points of view. This doesn't completely bother me, but I'm not entirely in love with it either. I found myself getting slightly annoyed because the shifting points of view would disrupt the flow at times, but at others, it would build the story. The differing points of view also limited the character development, creating a shallowness to all the characters.

This book is about the Ellison family, their servants, and the Inspector who comes into their neighborhood to solve a series of murders. The Ellison family is composed of a city banker father, a mother, a paternal grandmother, three daughters, and a son-in-law. They have a butler, a cook, and two maids (or one maid and one kitchen helper). They live on Cater Street, where a woman has just been found garroted in the alley. Inspector Thomas Pitt has been called in to solve this murder. While he interviews the family, he meets the middle daughter, Charlotte, and forms an interest in her. Pitt is from a working-class background, whilst Charlotte is from an upper-class (but not aristocratic) background, making any romance between them a mesalliance. 

While Pitt investigates, many families are loath to tell him details because of the police class in society and their interests in keeping any family/servant gossip out of the mainstream. I'm not as knowledgeable in British history as I'd like to be, and I'm not as familiar with all the class issues in history (or even in the present day), so I assume that much of the tension with Pitt and his investigation came from this. Other women (always women) are found garroted in the street; the victims range from housemaids to daughters of wealthy families. There are no witnesses to these crimes, making the investigation difficult.

Neighbors, servants, and the Vicar all make appearances. Family secrets come to light, and distrust is rampant. The writing was fine, but I found the emotions to be a bit dramatic. Characters are often short-tempered and angry over trivial things. Again, I think some of it was having a lower-class police officer questioning them, but I found it annoyingly rude to be honest. Eventually, the hangman--as the killer is named--targets one of the Ellison daughters. There is a small investigation by Charlotte and many conversations between her and Pitt about who the hangman could be and what motives they have. Charlotte, through many meetings with Pitt, has come to realize that her sheltered life has given her no idea about what causes people to commit crimes. 

I didn't guess who the killer was (I tend to try not to), and I thought it was a good mystery overall. Pitt and Charlotte fall in love (I suppose romance is hinted at, but I didn't find it strong at all--this book is overall a Victorian mystery, not a romance). The youngest daughter is also romanced by a Viscount, which is another class-hopping marriage. 

The book ends abruptly. The crime is solved, and the book ends right after that. I didn't like that at all. After reading up to the sixth book, I can tell you this is Perry's norm.  

The best and worst part of the book happens at the same time. The "motive" of the hangman is revealed because Charlotte idiotically goes out--by herself, at night--when a deranged strangler is roaming around (having already murdered three or four women, including her sister). I dislike the heroine throwing herself in danger because of temporary moments of insanity plot devices (also known as the "too stupid to live" plot) for the hero to rescue her. Luckily, Pitt does rescue her, unmasking the hangman and divining the hangman's need to kill. While Pitt is a detective (and Charlotte helps), this is more a mystery with a focus on human nature and the female psyche.

Perry has researched the period and the morals (and hypocrisy) of the Victorian times. I'm not an expert, so any mistakes Perry could have made would have had to be glaring for me to note.