Seance gone awry

The crime novelist Anne Perry strikes again in her latest mystery escapade, Southampton Row. Perry's serial protagonist, Thomas Pitt, hunts down a murderer using his skills of judging personality and emotion in his suspects.

As unlike Sherlock Holmes as they come, the frazzled and slightly shabby Pitt struggles though a labyrinth of Victorian Britain's personalities and politics in order to discover the murderer of a mystical "medium" who speaks to the dead for a handsome price. Pitt begins by scrutinizing the final customers of the medium. Because he believes she was possibly murdered because of her connection to the blackmailing of the British upper crust, Pitt tops his list of suspects with politician's wives, military generals and leaders of the clergy. With fear of the British political system in mind, Pitt tries to link the murder with the darkly powerful "inner circle" that is plotting to overthrow Queen Victoria.

As Parliamentary elections near, Pitt becomes increasingly frantic to uncover the murderer, protect his career and perhaps bring down some of the political enemies he accrued during past investigations.

After the first 10 pages and a flurry of last names that would make an ice skater dizzy, the book's plot spins away from the main murder-mystery storyline. It goes into detailed tangents about other characters within the novel. Perry successfully incorporates side narratives of love, fear, mystery and adventure into a cohesive plot.

The greatest shortfall of the work is the alarmingly frequent references to earlier stories in the series. These vague references to past events break up the mounting tension of the plot with comments unconnected with the current story.

The tale invokes the rather stereotypical images of British stiff-shirts in oversized leather armchairs surrounded by rows of books and prim, corseted Victorian women serving tea in ornate drawing rooms. However, Perry frequently includes underlying elements of feminist stirrings and tension between the sexes that further the plot in a manner dissimilar to what is found in other Victorian-esque mysteries.

For a taste of a simplistic book with a dash of excitement, one should serve this novel properly, with a cup of tea and a crumpet.