Anne Perry, Long Spoon Lane

Long Spoon Lane

Anne Perry

Ballantine, Apr 2005, $25.95, 336 pp.

ISBN: 0345469275

By the summer of 1893, the English have become concerned with the bombing activities of the Anarchists who set off explosions recently in London and Paris. A tip has come into the Special Branch, whose mission is to stop terrorists, claiming a bomb is set to go off in East London. Special Branch Chief Victor Narraway and Agent Thomas Pitt rush to the area; they capture two of the bombers. A third, a parliament member's son, is killed.

Pitt investigates the crime in an effort to learn who murdered the third prisoner. As he conducts an internal investigation of the affairs of his office and the police as a whole, Pitt uncovers vast corruption with Bow Street Inspector Wetron seemingly an untouchable chieftain protected by the highest levels of government. Meanwhile, the media goes on a feeding frenzy, demanding the arming of Bobbies and invoking patriotism, insisting more power be granted to law enforcement to intimidate suspected terrorists. Only a devil's deal with his enemy Sir Charles Voisey might stop Wetron from taking advantage of the public fervor, which seems to make this mastermind even more potent and deadly.

Highly regarded for her terrific historical mysteries, Anne Perry may have written her most relevant late-nineteenth-century police procedural in LONG SPOON LANE. The storyline is action-packed from the moment the two Special Branch cops race to Myrdle Street to prevent a bombing and never slows down as the hero learns how deep corruption and greed extend in the force. Charlotte, Pitt's wife, plays a lesser role than she did in SEVEN DIALS, but no one will mind as the parallel of 1893 England to modern America is uncanny.

Harriet Klausner