Barbara’s Rating – 5 of 5 stars

Series: Daniel Pitt #2
Publication Date: 4/9/19
Number of Pages: 288

Anne Perry is a master storyteller and this new series just adds to her legend. I have followed and loved the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series from the beginning and to now have their son Daniel with his own series is delightful. The first book in the series, Twenty-One Days, was an outstanding read and a great introduction to this new series. In this book, we find recurring characters from the first book – and I hope they will be recurring characters throughout the series because I liked them all very well. I particularly like Miriam Fford Croft who is an anomaly for her time – she is brilliant and has studied forensic sciences and has passed all of the tests to become a doctor, but she can’t be a doctor because she is a female. I also think she might turn out to be Daniel’s love interest even though she is 15 years older than him – he’s twenty-five and she is soon to be forty.

Daniel is so excited! His sister Jemima is visiting from America with her husband and their two daughters. Daniel has never met her husband nor her daughters and he’s so excited to meet them – especially his nieces. He’s also apprehensive because he hasn’t seen Jemima in four years and he wonders if she has changed. They were so close growing up and he doesn’t want to lose that even though they live on different continents. Her husband is an Irish-American police detective named Patrick Flannery.

When Daniel first meets Patrick, he has quite a story to tell Daniel and he asks Daniel for his help. Daniel is a very honorable, honest and upstanding young man (just like his dad) who has devoted his life to the justice system and he is outraged and angry at the tale Patrick has told him. A diplomat from the British Embassy in Washington DC broke into the home of a prominent American citizen, he assaulted (not raped) the daughter of the home in her bedroom and snatched a necklace from her neck and made his escape – but not before her father saw and recognized him. That same diplomat claimed diplomatic immunity and immediately returned to London. Daniel is outraged at this miscarriage of justice and wonders how he can help bring the blackguard to justice.

Soon, the method presents itself and Daniel is prepared to leap in, but then, he meets the young man and starts to wonder if he knows all he needs to know about the case. Patrick is adamant that the young man is guilty, Jemima is torn, and Daniel just doesn’t know. As Daniel digs, he comes to believe there is a bigger, darker secret yet to be uncovered. That doesn’t mean the man isn’t guilty – it just means there is more to know.

Daniel investigates and more and more things seem – just – wrong – not quite adding up. He asks his friend Roman Blackwell (from book one) to learn what he can of the young man and then later he brings Miriam in to do some forensic work. They all uncover more and more information that makes Daniel believe he’s in a bed of quicksand – a bottomless pool of secrets.

The ending is quick, short and unexpected. Maybe a bit too abrupt for my liking. I thought that some leaps of logic that Miriam made were more like leaping canyons rather than fissures and I didn’t see anything presented at that point that would actually justify that leap. Then, once that leap was made, we didn’t see the evidence until Daniel presented it. I would have liked to see more of that investigation and how they got there.

This is a delightful read and I absolutely LOVED that Charlotte and Thomas Pitt made appearances. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed if you give the book a try!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.