Dorchester Terrace, by Anne Perry
The Book
It's Thomas Pitt's first real test as head of Special Branch, when he receives word that something suspicious seems to be going on in Kent. The problem with being tasked with preventing terrorist attacks is that sometimes the signs are so subtle, they can be easily missed. In this case, Special Branch agents have word that people are asking mightily specific information about the trains running between Dover and London during a very narrow time frame. A little bit of investigating on Pitt's part, and he find that Duke Alois Hapsburg, a minor Austrian duke, from one of cadet branches of the Hapsburg dynasty is on his way from Austria to London to visit one of his cousins and his grandmama, Victoria. Pitt takes note and runs it up to the Foreign Secretary. But Pitt is being tested, and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Tregarron, thinks Pitt is jumping at shadows. He fobs Pitt off onto his new junior assistant, MP Jack Radley.
Jack is in a terrible position. New to his job, it's what he needs to learn to make him good at it. He knows Pitt isn't prone to exaggeration, but he can't use the "Hey I trust my brother-in-law" string on Tregarron. Both Pitt and Jack are vulnerable to accusations of nepotism, Jack, because his wife, the former Lady Ashworth, maintained her vast political and social connections and Pitt because, the former Lady Ashworth is his sister-in-law. He advises Pitt to seek out
Now Charlotte (Pitt's wife) and Emily (Jack's wife) are having a tiff. They know the tension between their husbands, but although the boys are fine, Emily is worried Jack might not be great at his job and Charlotte knows Pitt is vulnerable. Unable to take their concerns to their husbands, the sisters become increasingly ill tempered with each other.
Meanwhile Pitt's former boss, Lord Narraway, bored and unable to stop Pitt's test decides to investigate the death of a friend of Vespasia Cumming-Gould (Aunt Vespasia to Emily by marriage and Pitt and Charlotte by choice). The two cases merge, and if the murderer or murderers succeed, both Pitt and Jack will pay the price.
My Thoughts
Wow, trying to write a synopsis of this book got convoluted really quick. I do believe if I were the author, I would have trimmed a plot point or two. It's not as easy as it looks to merge an A plot an a B plot, as we frequently see in things like Start Trek shows. Sometimes it becomes impossible, or implausible. I would argue the later is the case here. And although Alois Hapsburg makes barely an appearance on the page, I did dig into history to see if I could find him. He's as delightfully fictional as Thomas Pitt. And it was an inventive use of the sprawling Hapsburg dynasty on Anne Perry's part.
I think the thing I found most interesting, is that until the end of the book, I couldn't have told you if I had read it or not. I have not. None-the-less, I've read enough Anne Perry's to guess the end. And I love the twist, even if I figured it out in advance.
From here to the end of the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt books, whether or not I have read them is hit and miss. Sometimes I found the book on the shelves of my local library, sometimes, they would have had to be ordered from local libraries.
We have arrived at my spot in the Anne Perrys where my disputes with the way my local library led me to become a library trustee. In short, when I moved to IL from NC, I had problems getting a library card. Policy which I fought to change, and which I have not yet been successful. As such, when I had to order the book from a different library, I didn't read it. It took five long years to get my library card situation fixed. By then, I was so far behind, I didn't catch up. I'll get them now.
How Much My Library Card Saved Me
This first edition hardcover came to me from Prospect Heights public library. It entered their circulation in April of 2012. There are small pencils marks, with a date of 7/17 on the same page with the marking lao. Now, we saw something similar, when a previous Anne Perry book entered into the core collection at a different library. I don't know if that's the case with this book, but it bears a similar mark. The book itself is in remarkably good condition and should be in circulation quite a bit longer. The inside cover says this book originally retailed for $26.00.
By this point in time, we may postulate that part of the low cost of the book is due to Amazon pricing power. It is my belief Amazon has been on a decades long push to run publishers out of business by cutting their profit margins to the bone. By this point in time, 2012, Amazon already had the lion share of book sales in the United States. Between the dominance of Amazon and the consolidation of retail bookstores, leaving just BooksaMillion and Barnes & Nobles as the dominate players, indie bookstores were increasingly having to close. 2012, before the rise of the brain rot that is social media addiction, was a peak year for publishing. But they knew they were fighting a downhill battle. Now according to Raising Readers, fewer young people are taking up novel reading as a hobby. If there is one thing I would change, it's bringing novel reading back.
This Book $26.00
Library Items Reviewed This Year $82.95
Private Books
This Book $00.00
Total of Private Books $52.75
Total of All Items Reviewed This Year $148.70
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