Charlotte and Thomas Pitt (2) - Callander Square by Anne Perry
And the second murder the Pitt's try to illuminate: Callander Square! (In German Callander Square). I read it in German, where it contained 278 pages. Originally published in 1980.
Two babies are found, buried in the earth of the Callander Square. Thomas Pitt is supposed to find out what happened to the two years and 6 months old corpses. What, at first, seems like a desperate action of a maid gets more complex and complicated with every revealed secret of the High Society inhabitants. Charlotte and her little sister Emily try to find out more about the inhabtitants, and discover not only the usual gossip about Miss Christina or Ser Robert, but another crime related to the dead infants. When Charlotte runs in another corpse, it finally starts making sense...
The theme of this book is not very nice, I must admit, but Anne Perry manages to focus more on the status of women, maids and so on than on the infants, which is far better (for my taste). The difference between the illusion of the ever-so-innocent High Society woman and the reality is very well done. On the one hand one sees characters through the eyes of Thomas, or Charlotte and realises how they look to outsiders, on the other hand one sees through the eyes of the parents and get a whole different picture of that person. Then, the whole gossip is added and the information you gain through the development in the story and you have a very interesting very realistic character before you, and that in a time woman are beautiful and should take care their husbands are happy, where they have no real function and are usually in the eyes of the men not more worthy than servants. All of this, as well as the whole discipline of manners, is illustrated in a very realistic way.
I like the characters, too, like General Balantyne and Jemima. I even like the General's wife. She's gorgeous. And she knows how to control that daughter of hers.
Max is disgusting as is the said daughter.
I also like how they show how hard it was for Charlotte to adjust to her new life. But now, she's quite happy. She chose the right person.
All in all I give this book a star for style, ideas, the plot, characters and last but not least what I mentioned above, with the focus and the many facets you have. It is so uncommon in detective stories I have to give an extra-star.