Category: Historical Mystery

The Fourth Enemy by Anne Perry

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, George V - 1910- 1936, Historical Mystery, Part of a Series, Top Pick - Highly RecommendedLeave a comment

The Fourth Enemy (Daniel Pitt #6)Barbara’s rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Series: Daniel Pitt #6
Publication Date: 4/11/23
Period: 1912 – George V
Number of Pages: 352

Gosh – what can I say? The book is every bit as exciting and nail-biting as the blurb implies and it may be my favorite of all of the books I’ve read so far this year. I have loved his author’s writing style since I read the first William Monk book and have read each book and series since. I love that this series features Daniel Pitt who is the son of Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, whose series was named after them.

The opening of this book has your mouth dropping open because of all of the changes that have happened between the last book and this one. I mean – we knew it would happen, but I thought we’d read it on-page rather than learning it happened three months prior to the beginning of this book. What happened? Well, Daniel and Miriam are married! YES! However, that isn’t the only change. Marcus fford Croft announces his retirement right at the beginning of the book, so there is a huge shake-up at the fford Croft and Gibson Law firm. You’ll be a bit surprised – I think – I was. Of course, someone is named as the new head of chambers to replace Marcus, but the replacement who is brought in to fill the vacancy left when the new head of chambers is named certainly stirs up some angst. Yes, Gideon Hunter, is a King’s Counsel who is brilliant, erratic, and can now choose which cases to accept. So, big changes for Daniel at work and at home.

Gideon calls in some favors on his very first day with the firm and manages to get the firm assigned as the prosecutor in a very controversial case involving a charismatic man. Malcolm Vayne is one of the most popular men in England. He supports the women’s suffrage movement as well as most of the worthy charities. Not to mention, he owns most of the newspapers in England as well. Yes, everybody absolutely loves Vayne, so how could he be charged with running a ponsy scheme that defrauds thousands of hardworking, simple citizens? With his riches, and close ties to many of the most powerful men in the country – and on the continent – how will they ever manage to prove their case against him?

Danger lurks around every corner because Vayne’s supporters are vocal and rabid. Is Vayne maybe a bit dangerous as well? Everybody from the witnesses to the prosecutors and their families are in danger. Will they manage to survive? Will the law firm survive? In the end, is Vayne really innocent? Will the jury really understand all of the dull financial details?

Oh! What an exciting read. I couldn’t put it down once I started reading, so I definitely recommend it! Happy reading!

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

View all my reviews

Heart of the Nile by Will Thomas

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Historical Mystery, Part of a Series, Victorian Era (1837-1901)Leave a comment

Heart of the Nile (Barker & Llewelyn, #14)

Barbara’s rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Series: Barker and Llewelyn #14
Publication Date: 4/11/23
Period: Victorian London – 1893
Number of Pages: 320

What do you get when you combine murders, Cleopatra’s mummy, a huge ruby, a street gang, a highly distraught widow, and two excellent enquiry agents? A very good mystery! This author just churns out great mystery after great mystery and I never tire of reading them.

It is rapidly approaching the beginning of the new year and cases are few because of the holidays. A distraught young woman comes into their offices and requests they find her husband who is missing. He teaches school during the day and works as a volunteer at the British Museum until midnight. Except – he didn’t come home last night.

Phillip Addison is a wonderful young man who defied his very rich family for love. His teaching job just doesn’t support him and his wife, so he is working as a volunteer at the British Museum in hopes of turning it into a paying position. While going about his tasks of classifying, weighing, and storing a number of Egyptian mummies, he makes a startling discovery. Deep in the chest cavity of one of those mummies is a large ruby that would be priceless. In his excitement, he runs out of the museum with the ruby (to show his boss) – only to realize a few minutes later that he’s now locked out – with a giant, priceless ruby in his possession. Oops! His body is found the next morning floating in the Thames.

Barker and Llewelyn’s missing person case has morphed into something much larger and deadlier. Everyone is now trying to recover, for themselves, the item Phillip found. Where is it? What is it? Everybody knows he found something, but nobody knows what.

Everybody believes that Barker has whatever they are looking for – but does he? They’ll do whatever they have to do to get it from him. Bribery, threats, trickery, attempts on his and Llewelyn’s life – it is all tried to pry the item’s location from Barker.

This was a great mystery, but I was pretty sure I knew who the villain was early on. However, there were so many red herrings thrown it that it kept me from being sure until the very end. It wouldn’t have mattered if the name of the villain(s) had been plastered in large red letters on the first page of the book – the story was so good I would still have loved it.

My only complaint is that this tale broke my heart. Being a soft-hearted romantic, I could hardly stand the idea that such a lovely young man was murdered and two people who truly loved each other were torn apart. Please, Mr. Will Thomas, don’t let me get to know and like a character and then kill them off.

I can definitely recommend this entertaining, well-crafted mystery. I love how the characters have grown through the series. Another thing I like about the series is the point of view. It is written from Llewelyn’s POV – as if he is writing his memoirs years later.

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

View all my reviews