I finished Anne Perry's Long Spoon Lane

I finished Long Spoon Lane last night. As always with Anne Perry's books, I did enjoy it very much and looked forward to my nightly sojourn in Victorian London.

I feel as if I know Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, their maid Gracie and her "young man", Sergeant Tellman. And for me, that's one of the great things about reading series of books, with the same lead characters in each one. You begin to think of them as people, rather than just characters.

Perry's books can be just a little bit dark. Maybe it's the times she's writing about. Life was wonderful for the upper classes. She doesn't succumb to the temptation to make all the upper class people unpleasant, and Aunt Vespasia is Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, who is one of the best people in the books. But life wasn't so great for many of the less fortunate classes, and that seems to be where much of the action takes place. So it can be kind of grim. But at the same time, the actual story lines and the intrigue that go with them are good enough that it's not a problem.

Another thing I've noticed about Anne Perry's books, and Long Spoon Lane is no exception, is that they don't always have nice neat endings with all the loose ends tight up tightly. Sometime people get away with things, and Pitt is devastated because he can't always "get the bad guy". I suspect that's the case more often than not in real life, especially back then when they didn't have the benefit of all the forensic advantages we have today. No DNA testing in Victorian England!

Anyway, again I heartily recommend Long Spoon Lane and any other Anne Perry books you come across. I'd love to hear your review of this or any other books you've read.