Buy Online Reviewed by Jeanne M. Jacobson Half Moon Street is clear evidence of Anne Perry's enviable, but well-deserved, success. Consider, for a moment, what a single book may lead to. Perry's fans will snap up her new book. Mystery readers still unfamiliar with the series will find either her first mystery or her twentieth an excellent starting point. For greatest pleasure, readers should visit or revisit both of these dark streets.
Family is an essential theme in Perry's writing.
Sarah was pretty and dutiful, Emily ambitious, and Charlotte headstrong, willing to cast aside propriety and marry a policeman. Though some of the family members, particularly Emily, have had major roles in later books, Charlotte and William Pitt are constants. During Half Moon Street, however, Charlotte is present only through her letters. Widowed after a long marriage, she too has defied propriety, marrying Joshua Fielding, a playwright many years her junior. In Emily's absence, old Mrs. Ellison is staying with Caroline, her bitterness and malicious enmity a constant affliction.