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Paragon Walk (1986)

Paragon Walk (1986)

Book Info

Author
Genre
Rating
3.82 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0449211681 (ISBN13: 9780449211687)
Language
English
Publisher
ballantine books

About book Paragon Walk (1986)

Book three in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mystery series finds Charlotte's sister, Emily, in the middle of yet another murder. The haughty aristocrats find themselves ashamed to be caught in the middle of a murder and afraid that there is a murderer among them. Thomas works diligently as an investigator to get to the bottom of this mystery. Charlotte has one foot in the door of aristocrat world--as she was born into it--and one foot outside of the world since she married outside of it. She finds that she is reluctantly accepted in where Thomas is not. Hoping to help both her sister and her husband, Charlotte tries to help get to the bottom of poor Fanny's fate. The don't quite add up and tension builds. The neighbors all suspect each other. After another body turns up, Charlotte and Thomas fear that they may not solve the mystery in time.I started this series a long time ago and only recently remembered it when I ventured into the Maisie Dobbs series. I love these historical mysteries because they are solved through intellectual deduction and savviness. I remember that I stopped reading this series because Barnes and Nobles didn't have the next book in the series on its shelf and I wasn't into online ordering at the time. So when I saw this in my elibrary, I jumped at the chance to get into this series again. If you are unfamiliar with the series, I'm not quite sure if I can help with the familiarization of it. Charlotte and Thomas met in book one. Charlotte was born in a much higher class than Thomas but they still ended up together. Since Thomas is an investigator, Charlotte finds herself helping him in anyway she can. From what I've seen this series focuses on Charlotte and Thomas shows up every once in a while. Charlotte is smart, sharp-tongued, and curious, but she does strive to care for her husband in the way that society expects during this time period.This particular mystery was mind boggling. There were many characters, motives, and opportunities. At times, it felt like there was no progress in solving the mystery, which both irritated and intrigued me. I had NO inkling of who could possibly be the guilty party and when it was unveiled, I was left with my mouth wide open. This is a mystery but there is a strong focus on characters and societal norms. I ended up liking the story but I was very upset with the ending. It went like this... this is the bad guy. THE END. I was like...WTF?! And I never say that. Not even in my head. I felt like I worked just as hard as Charlotte and Thomas to solve the mystery and didn't get my payment. Also, if you are looking for a great romance between the characters, you'd have to find another book. I believed in the chemistry early in the series but there is little to no focus on that here.Interestingly, I revisited this series because of the Maisie Dobbs series and I found many similarities.You know, I wish I could find a historical mystery where the main characters don't seem so cold. It seems that a woman drawn in these historical mysteries can't be both intellectual and warm and affectionate. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.Overall, I enjoyed returning to this series and this mystery was definitely the most surprising that I have read in a long long time.

This book was a really good mystery, but I found myself a little confused by everything going on in it and all of the possible suspects. I think there were probably 20 or more characters in the book, by my count, most of whom were possible suspects. I just had trouble keeping track of them all, let alone trying to suss out who the murderer was! Moreover, though Pitt is the lead investigator, the whole novel focused more on Charlotte and Emily, which I found kind of irritating. I think I'd like more of a balance. Also, I found 85% of the characters to be totally worthless or worse than that. I guess I prefer there to be more redeeming characteristics, even among a list of possible suspects. They were all so dreadful! The only tolerable characters were Charlotte, Thomas, possibly Emily (although she irritates me), Vespasia, and Lettitia. I just found myself irritated by some of the high society conversations and by Thomas being such a minor character in the book. I didn't know who the murderer was, at all! It was a total surprise to me!

Do You like book Paragon Walk (1986)?

If you like Victorian cozies and lovable characters, this book is for you.With the third in the Pitt series, the author, Anne Perry hits her stride. The story begins with a body in the morgue. The victim is slight, delicately featured, beautifully dressed, her arms bruised, her face barely touched by life. Fanny Nash is seventeen when she is stabbed and raped in Paragon Walk, a London neighborhood of impeccable pedigree, and the neighborhood, as luck would have it, of Charlotte’s sister, Emily, and her husband, Lord Ashworth.Pitt is called in to to investigate. In so doing, he scrapes the surface of society—the inhabitants, their servants, their families—revealing their stories, their guilt, their secrets, their relationships with one another, their pompous ill regard for most everyone else. Ms Perry lays bare the hypocrisy at the heart of Victorian society, the theme at the heart of this intricately plotted, beautifully and accurately detailed novel. You won’t want it to end, but end it does, just after the mystery is solved.Meet the ageless beauty, Lady Vespasia Cumming-GouldA recurring character in the Pitt series, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, makes her first appearance in this novel. A favorite character of many readers, this one included, she happens to be staying with Emily and George in their Paragon Walk townhouse. Beautifully attired, outspoken, and witty, she serves, perhaps as the author’s point of view, but certainly as a delightful deus ex machina in this, as well as in subsequent novels in the series. One of her more envious characteristics is that she doesn’t age. She’s about seventy or eighty in Paragon Walk, and she approaches seventy in Treason in Lisson Grove which takes place, almost fifteen years later. You go, girl, Cumming-Gould!
—Susan Anderson

I enjoy this series but there is a trend here I don't like. This was a very intriguing story right up until a ridiculously abrupt ending. I clicked the next page and couldn't believe that the book had actually ended; I thought I had accidentally jumped ahead a chapter. I looked back on my reviews of the first two books in this series and saw that I noted the same thing in both of them-weak, abrupt endings. Hmm...it definitely knocks it down from 4 stars to 3. I already have the next several books on my Kindle and I enjoy the series enough that I'll gladly be continuing on with it, but I'm hoping hard for some stronger endings.
—Donna

This is the third adventure with Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. A young woman is butally raped and murdered in elegant Paragon Walk. She is a quiet retiring young woman and no on can figure out how this tragedy happened in such an upscale Victorian neighborhood. Nothing is making sense when even more people are found murdered. Charlotte and her sister, Emily help Thomas Pitt by moving in society in ways he never could.The story is good, but the best thing is the introduction of Aunt Vespalia, Emily's husband's aunt. She is delightful and a wonderful addition. As usual, the Victorian society assumes that the murder is done by one of the servants and that the murdered young woman must have been immoral even though there isn't a shred of evidence to suspect that. They engage in a frustrating circular argument which goes something like this. If the girl was raped, she must have been immoral. Even though she seems to be sweet, chaste and virginal, we know that she must have been immoral because she was raped. None of the upper class should be questioned in this matter because they don't come from the strata of society that committs crimes; they are upper class hence, they must be innocent.The ever patient Thomas Pitt has to tiptoe around the upper class sensibilities in order to get any information at all, but he never falters. The help of Charlotte, Emily and Aunt Vespalia is vital in getting around barriers as they drink tea and engage in the gossip that brings out the elusive clues.
—Anne Hawn Smith

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