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    The Cater Street Hangman
    The Cater Street Hangman
    The Cater Street Hangman
    Ebook425 pages7 hours

    The Cater Street Hangman

    By Anne Perry

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    In the debut of the New York Times–bestselling Victorian crime series, Inspector Thomas Pitt seeks an elusive strangler among upper-class British society. Panic and fear strike the Ellison household when one of their own falls prey to the Cater Street murderer. While Mrs. Ellison and her three daughters are out, their maid becomes the third victim of a killer who strangles young women with cheese wire, leaving their swollen-faced bodies on the dark streets of this genteel neighborhood. Inspector Pitt, assigned to the case, must break through the walls of upper-class society to get at the truth. His in-depth investigation gradually peels away the proper veneer of the elite world, exposing secrets and desires until suspicion becomes more frightening than truth. Outspoken Charlotte Ellison, struggling to remain within the confining boundaries of Victorian manners, has no trouble expressing herself to the irritating policeman. As their relationship shifts from antagonistic sparring to a romantic connection, the socially mismatched pair must solve the mystery before the hangman strikes again.

    Rich with authentic period details and blending suspenseful mystery with a budding romance between Inspector Pitt and Charlotte Ellison, The Cater Street Hangman launched the long-running series by Edgar Award–winning author Anne Perry, with recent titles including The Angel Court Affair and Treachery at Lancaster Gate. Also the creator of the William Monk Novels, Perry has become one of the great names in detective fiction. As the Philadelphia Inquirer says, “Pitt’s compassion and Charlotte’s cleverness make them compatible sleuths, as well as extremely congenial characters. . . . Perry has the gift of making [the Victorian era] seem immediate and very much alive.”
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateJun 14, 2011
    ISBN9781453219089
    Author

    Anne Perry

    With twenty million books in print, ANNE PERRY's was selected by The Times as one of the twentieth century's '100 Masters of Crime', for more information about Anne and her books, visit: www.anneperry.co.uk

    Read more from Anne Perry

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    Reviews for The Cater Street Hangman

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book it was a good read. It kept you guessing until the end. Looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
    • 3/5
      A nice first book. Fairly straight forward mystery. I like the setting and see a lot of potential for the 2 main characters.
    • 5/5
      Anne Perry is the gold standard for historical mysteries.
    • 4/5
      I read the 2011 Open Road ebook edition of this book. This is the first book I have read of hers but won't be the last. I was into the characters I really like charlotte and her sisters.Charlotte is reading the paper in secret because her father thinks that their is only a little on the news fit for women and he will read it to them. So she reads them when the servants put it away for them to read so at least its a day old by the time she can read it.Charlotte has a crush on her sister Sarah's husband. She is very out spoken and not afraid to say things to others. She is also caring about others and trys to help when she can.Sarah is married and she lives with her husband and her mother & Father, two sisters and grandmother in the same house.Emily is the youngest of the three sisters and romance is very important to her. She can manuver with the best of them.Someone is killing women on their street with a wire around their necks. Soon everyone is questioning everyone else. Pitt is the policeman that is in charge asking all the questions.I did not guess the real murder till the end of the book I suspected a few but was wrong. I recieved this ebook from netgalley in exchange for honest review.
    • 3/5
      In stuffy upper class London, Charlotte has an unusual mind of her own, which frequently gets her in hot water with her family and social circle. A series of murders of young women of her age has everyone in a tizzy, though most don't want to discuss it openly. The romantic tensions and hypocracies provide an insight into the relationships of the time and class. At the conclusion, the reader finds herself wanting more about these characters.
    • 5/5
      Surprisingly awesome book (why the low expectations? I've been disappointed before) and I'm looking forward to devouring the other 25 in the series. Here we meet Charlotte Ellison and her family, along with numerous other characters, in and around 1881 London. The Ellisons are solidly middle class, but their upright neighborhood has been shaken by a series of grisly murders with no ending in sight. Enter Inspector Pitt, handsome, articulate, unkempt "workingclass" policeman on the case who instead turns Charlottes middle class world upside down in more ways than one. Lots of class clashes, great dialogue, and Perry tells the story from many perspectives which is really interesting and works great. Her period details are very good, and gives equal play to the good and the bad in everyone. I couldn't figure out "whodunit" till the very end, as it should be. You won't want to put this one down, and you *definitely* won't want to wait for the second book!
    • 3/5
      The Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry is the first novel in her widely acclaimed and lengthy Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series. The novel centers on Charlotte Ellison and her family who live comfortably and quietly, members of the middle class, on Cater Street in London during the Victorian period. When the family's young maid ends up dead on Cather Street the result of a violent and awful hanging the family and the whole neighborhood become wrapped up in speculation and suspicion. Inspector Thomas Pitt takes the lead in the case and with the help of Charlotte they begin to discover that family is not always what it seems and sometimes people hide their real self's. I have been looking forward to reading this book for some time now. I have read and enjoyed many of the books in the William Monk series, and I have wanted to read this series as well but I wanted to start from the beginning and read them in order. I have to say that I was a bit disappointed with the beginning of this series. Firstly, the story is told in third person and we get many different perspectives on the case from Charlotte, her sisters, her mother, her grandmother and her brother in law, but at times the transitions from one person to another could be a bit confusing and distracted from the story. Also, it is almost frustrating that we never get the perspective of Inspector Pitt and the only impressions we get of him are what the other characters notice or see. I am not sure if the rest of the series is like this or not but I hope that Inspector Pitt becomes a more central figure in the next book. I guess that Anne Perry wanted to have a bit of mystery surrounding Inspector Pitt but it only frustrated me more. I think that I would have liked this book much more if it had been in first person like the Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters or the Lady Julia Grey mysteries by Deanna Raybourn which allows readers to connect more with their heroines and give us a better perspective on their heroes. Despite this there are a lot of good things in this novel; Anne Perry gives us an excellent insight into Victorian culture and times. She provides the audience with an accurate glimpse into the time period and what it was like to be a woman, wife, mother and daughter during a time when woman were meant to be quiet and keep their opinions to themselves. It is also interesting that she addresses the double standard that men had of women, men could cheat whenever they wanted as long as they kept discreet but women were not allowed to do this and had to just bear their husbands indiscretions. There are a lot of books that I have a read that have brushed this idea but Anne Perry makes it a central figure in her novel. Overall, I would continue to read the rest of the books in the series, if only to get a more clear picture of Inspector Pitt and see their developing relationship.
    • 4/5
      Sort of Pride and Prejudice with murders. The police inspector investigating the murders of four women is sweet on one of the sisters of a wealthy family whose maid was killed. Anyway, he keeps finding reasons to call back to the house, they find it intrusive and rude because he's not of their class.
    • 4/5
      The Ellison family is just like most of the other upper class families in Victorian London, the men busy about their business or spending time at their "clubs" while the women busy themselves with social calls, genteel pursuits and household management. The garroting murder of the first young lady in Cater street barely made a ripple in the parlors of the neighborhood because she was, after all, only a maid and very likely was socializing with dubious characters from the slums. But the second victim was a young woman of genteel birth, a member of their own social circle, and her brutal death couldn't be ignored. When the third victim was the Ellison's own maid, the horror barged into the drawing room and demanded their full attention, crumbling the delicate facade and exposing facts that none of those genteel ladies had ever dreamed possible. And the persistent questioning of the awkward police detective, Inspector Pitt, brings him into closer and closer contact with the middle daughter of the Ellison family until Charlotte has to admit to herself that he cannot be ignored any longer, either.This was a smashing beginning to what promises to be a very entertaining and thought provoking series. The mismatched leading characters are intriguing and the author writes with just enough suspense to keep me guessing almost to the very end. Good book!
    • 3/5
      Interesting book and a nice quick read.

      Set in Victorian London, a young woman is killed and suspicion falls on the various households in the vicinity. We see this through the eyes of the Ellison family. Initially it is presumed to be the work of the 'criminal class' but as Inspector Pitt enters their lives and the investigation progresses, it becomes unclear just who could be the perpetrator. More girls are killed and there is no common thread between them. As a backdrop to all this, you have the lives of Victorian gentlemen and women, the inequalities and injustices, the pampered lives versus the lives of the ordinary people they try to blame. Of course, suspicion falls on each in turn and they end up not trusting each other for various reasons. None of this is in any depth, and that was a little disappointing, but in order to maintain the pace and keep it as a mystery rather than a historical novel, I guess that was the easiest way forward. Plus, of course, this is the first in a series of books, so I fully expect that later books expand on the various characters and the reader will learn more about them. Finally, I thought I'd worked it out fairly early on, but I was wrong.... close but wrong.

      Not a challenging book - read it in 2 sittings - but enjoyable enough and a light interlude after a couple of books that I struggled to maintain interest in.
    • 3/5
      I read this book almost right after reading the first book of Perry's 'William Monk' series. As a result my expectation of what to expect in this book was completely off. At first I was disappointed but once my expectation was adjusted I enjoyed the book a lot. In the Monk series we get one perspective, the male investigator. I had anticipated this would follow the same general way of telling the story but was wrong. The story was told from several different character's perspective, none of which was the lead investigator looking into the crime. This novel deals much more with the daily routine of a Victorian family, especially young and outspoken Charlotte Ellison.

      Although I liked the dialogue and discussions between the various members of the Ellison family, I was a little frustrated that as a reader I didn't get exposed to most of the actual crime investigation. Also the supposed romance in the book between Charlotte and her future husband, Inspector Pitt, was delayed until the very end of the book. The shift in Charlotte's feelings for the good Inspector came across as a little too abrupt. I would have much preferred their romance to be covered in a little more detail over the space of two or three books. Although I like Perry's writing, I think I'll continue with her William Monk series.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this start to the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, set in Victorian London. This novel opens in 1881 with the still unmarried Charlotte Ellison. The middle child, her sister Sarah is married to a man Charlotte has a longstanding crush on, and her younger sister Emily is trying to catch a Lord in matrimony. Their comfortable middle class existence is disturbed before the novel opens when a young lady was garroted to death and her corpse found near them on Cater Street. Over the next few weeks two maids are killed the same way. When the Ellison's maid Lily is murdered, Inspector Thomas Pitt comes to investigate. Thomas, as a policeman, is seen as working class. The novel is great at showing the way that social gulf isolates people, and provides a barrier to Charlotte's and Thomas' romance, as well as the stultifying patriarchal culture Charlotte is trapped in. What she can read, what she can discuss is controlled by her father--the opening scene of the book shows her resorting to subterfuge just to read the daily newspaper. I wouldn't call Perry's style elegant--among other things there are point of view slips--but it was serviceable enough, and the characters, especially Thomas Pitt, appealing enough I can imagine someday reading more of the novels.
    • 3/5
      When I learned that there was a series of Victorian era murder/mysteries I became excited since I was bored with the usual historical romances. Ah, thought I, now for some excitement. In the Cater Street Hangman, the first of this series, the plot is good as mysteries go with any number of red herrings thrown in. The final denouement is a surprise (at least it was to me). However, the characters all seem a bit shallow and story movement is slow. At the outset I thought this would be one of those books where I read the first couple of chapters and set it aside. Not so. After a slow start, the story does indeed pick up with bits and pieces of the puzzle being revealed slowly. For this reader, however, there are many unanswered questions about dangling story lines. Hopefully, they will be answered in the next book in the series. I've given this book 3 stars based on the originality of the plot.
    • 5/5
      How can I not like this? It combines two of my favorite things -- historical fiction and a murder mystery! It's set in Victorian-era England, and I think all the intricacies of social life at that time are well portrayed. It must have been so stressful living at that time and always worrying if you're doing and saying the right things! It seemed to me that the worst thing one could do was be "impertinent". I'm not sure how I feel about Anne Perry's somewhat sordid past, but I really enjoyed this book and I look forward to reading/listening to the others in the series.
    • 3/5
      Not bad at all. An intriguing concept--the main character is a detective who has lost his memory--is given a workman-like treatment. Perry's work will please most mystery fans, especially those who like period pieces, as this is set in the 19th century, which Perry captures well. None of those glaring errors of speech will be seen here.
    • 4/5
      As a comedy of manners, The Cater Street Hangman is reasonably good, telling the story of three sisters, their various suitors, and how this interacts with their family. As a thriller it is somewhat good, with a serial killer on the loose garroting and mutilating young girls. As a whodunit, it is lacking with virtually no clues pointing to the perpetrator (beyond the observation that no clues were pointing the perpetrator) and the killer found essentially by accident in the course of attempting another murder.

      But for some reason the combination of reasonably good, somewhat good and lacking all combined together to create a much better whole that was enjoyable to read and maintained interest throughout, notwithstanding the lack of spine-tingling feelings that the best crime novels should bring.

      Will probably read more in the series.
    • 3/5
      I have greatly enjoyed the William Monk series and felt I needed to delve into the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series. Perry shows that the police department in England did not evoke respect in the 1880's. No privileged family would welcome a policeman into their family. Policemen are barely above the riffraff that they must arrest. Perry spends much time in describing the everyday life of the English, and the role of a lady in this society. That life stands as a boring march to the grave. Women have no life and have been held to strict principles. Men, in contrast, lead a different life with different principles. The killer/hangman comes as a surprise, but the story abruptly stops with the discovery of the hangman.
    • 4/5
      Someone is killing innocent young women on Cater Street. Inspector Pitt investigates. He also finds the love of his life. The treatment of women in Victorian England is expalined very well in this book.
    • 3/5
      I didn't enjoy this book.The problem is three-fold:1 - I don't believe in the characters. These are Victorian ladies, living in a house where the mother refers to her mother-in-law as Grandmama. I don't think that the daughters of the house would think of their mother by her given name, not even in their own thoughts. I know why the author has them do it, to make it clearer who is talking about who, but it distorts the feel of the characters.2 - The resolution of the plot came out of nowhere. I can see what they were going for, but I've never been a fan of twist murderers.3 - I don't like Inspector Pitt. I can see what the author was aiming for, brave working class man who has fought his way up to Inspector rank, opening the eyes of privileged woman to the poverty all around her, making her a better person.It would probably work if Inspector Pitt wasn't such a sermonizing, sanctimonious know it all. (Eoin McCarthy played him in the TV version and even he couldn't make him bearable, which I would have though impossible.) I'm convinced that Charlotte has swapped one pompous prat (her father) for another one.Part of the problem may have been that the only character I liked was the youngest sister.It's not actually a bad book, it's solidly written and does a reasonably good job of scene-setting, I just didn't enjoy it.
    • 5/5
      Exactly What I Hoped It Would BeThe Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry is the first in a long series of novels featuring Charlotte and Thomas Pitt. I'm delighted to have found these new-to-me Victorian mysteries and relish the thought of reading the entire series.I liked the writer's voice from the very start. Perry expertly combines two stories here: one about the morals and manners of the Victorian period, the other a gruesome mystery. While some readers may find the author a bit heavy-handed, I was interested in her description of the role of women within the family and the patriarchal, societal and religious influences on their restrictive lives. In spite of this, while not without her faults, Charlotte evidences intelligence and a strong will.Perry does an exceptional job describing the dynamics of the Ellison family and their lives. I felt like I was right in their midst enjoying tea in the withdrawing room, and being overcome with confusion, fear and doubt as the murders progress. Well-drawn and distinctive characters here in the daughters and other family members.There is a sharp contrast between Charlotte's sheltered existence and the harsh realities of the Victorian netherworld as recounted by Insp. Pitt. I particularly enjoyed the delightful scene when Charlotte gets quite an education of the criminal class while waiting in Pitt's office.Well paced, especially as we zero in on the murderer, I flew through the book and admit, while I had lots of suspicions, it took me nearly until the reveal to identify the perpetrator......I love that in a mystery.While really not looking for too much more romance, I might have enjoyed a little more development of Charlottes's feelings for Insp. Pitt, especially as we don't get much information on how he rather quickly goes from admiring Charlotte to proposing to her. I felt the book ended a bit abruptly and perhaps a final short epilogue was needed, but all in all, The Cater Street Hangman was a very satisfying read. I'm looking forward to the other books in the series, which some reviewers have stated may be even better than this one. Lots more fun to look forward to.
    • 4/5
      Great characters and fun mystery, but lost momentum for me at the end - and had an extremely abrupt ending. Still, I will probably look for the second in the series.
    • 4/5
      Cater Street is an upscale residential neighborhood in Victorian London. It is the residence of the Ellison family, and it also becomes the scene of terror and mystery as several young women in the neighborhood are found garroted. The eminently respectable neighborhood appears to have a serial killer on its hands. What is nearly as bad as the murders is that they have been inundated by the police who are seeking the killer. Police are still rather suspicious in late-nineteenth century London, and they threaten the respectability of the neighborhood. One of the Ellisons disagrees with these ideas. Charlotte, Ellison daughter of marriageable age, finds the case fascinating, and also starts to find the police inspector, Thomas Pitt, rather interesting too. Aside from being a good mystery, which this is, this book offers a wealth of information about Victorian family and gender norms. The reader gets an acute sense of the structures binding a free spirit like Charlotte Ellison. Readers who are not especially familiar with the Victorian period will likely find the ideas about the police interesting too-- they are hardly complimentary and quite different from the twenty-first century. I did figure out the responsible party in this mystery rather earlier than I would have preferred, but this book certainly pulled me into the series and made me want to read more. I'm expecting subsequent books in this series to be better; this book had to lay significant groundwork introducing the family and the Ellison sisters.
    • 5/5
      This was a wonderful historical mystery, it is the beginning of Charlotte Ellison and Inspector Thomas Pitt's romance. A madman is garroting women at night on Cater Street. These women are a mixture of classes, both maids and young ladies of the family. When the Ellison's maid is murdered Inspector Pitt goes to their home to question the family and that is where he meets Charlotte. Things progress and each develops feelings that neither will admit until the final murder occurs. A well written storyline and great characters make this a great book.Thank Net Galley and Random House Publishing Group.
    • 4/5
      As a comedy of manners, The Cater Street Hangman is reasonably good, telling the story of three sisters, their various suitors, and how this interacts with their family. As a thriller it is somewhat good, with a serial killer on the loose garroting and mutilating young girls. As a whodunit, it is lacking with virtually no clues pointing to the perpetrator (beyond the observation that no clues were pointing the perpetrator) and the killer found essentially by accident in the course of attempting another murder.But for some reason the combination of reasonably good, somewhat good and lacking all combined together to create a much better whole that was enjoyable to read and maintained interest throughout, notwithstanding the lack of spine-tingling feelings that the best crime novels should bring.Will probably read more in the series.
    • 4/5
      The first in a series of Victorian mysteries involving Charlotte and Thomas Pitt. Although she is Charlotte Ellison at the beginning. Someone is garotting young ladies on Cater Street, and when it happens to the Ellison's maid, Inspector Thomas Pitt becomes an unwelcome but frequent visitor to the house. Everyone is suspected, and family secrets are revealed as no one knows who they can trust. I enjoyed the book, but I found the romance story to be very abrupt, even though I knew from the start that it would be happening. One minute she hates him, the next minute they are engaged, and I didn't buy into it. I suspect I'll like the later books since they will already be a couple!
    • 4/5
      This is not your run of the mill historical mystery. A fairly straight ahead plot, but the characters and class system description is where this book shines. Jane Austen with a killer. Can't wait to read more.
    • 1/5
      Apparently, Anne Perry was one of the young women that the film Heavenly Creatures was based on. She's written an enormous amount of detective fiction and this book is the first in an apparently popular series about the married protagonists. It was a reasonably enough cosy read until the end and then it distressed me with what, to me, was callous disregard.
    • 3/5
      First in a series of books about Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. It is important to read this one as it sets the stage for all the characters in the rest of the series. The strange thing about this books is the way Thomas and Charlotte decide to get married. One day Charlotte is not sure how she feels about Thomas and within a few pages they have decided to get married. Perhaps I don't understand Victorian social conventions at all, but I thought that was a little strange. Still, Perry has to further the novel and the the series, so I suppose many pages of arguing with Charlotte's parents would not work.

      The book has an odd twist at the end. I had an inkling of who the killer was, but was a little off. The way Perry writes does point to the killer in an oblique way.

      Perry does an excellent job of researching the era.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed two books of the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series and figured it be a series to read from start to finish. Plus I have to confess a part of me wanted to read how Charlotte and Tom met. I guess there is a bit of romantic in me but just a very teeny weeny bit.

      Cater was a bit slow but it soon picked up pace and was an enjoyable read. I thought the romance part bit between Charlotte and Mr Pitt was a bit well let's say silly but I'm not in to romance but the fact that Charlotte says yes to marrying some guy she's never dated or never referred to by his first name Thomas but as Mr Pitt brought a bit of laughter to the story but perhaps that's the way things were back in Victorian England. I'll have to consult with my romance writer and reader expert Kym McNabney

      The mystery of whodunit was a mystery to me just about to the end but one scene made me switch my original guess to another member of the same household.

      I so much enjoyed 'Cater Street Hangman' I was tempted to make my next check out #2 in the series Callander Square' but since the library did not have a copy it eliminated the temptation, but I'm a fan of Anne Perry's Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series
    • 3/5
      The Cater Street Hangman is the book that introduces Charlotte Ellison and her future husband, Inspector Thomas Pitt.

      Charlotte Ellison isn't even allowed to read the newspaper in her all too conventional upper middle class Victorian neighborhood. Her parents, her strict father in particular, wants to keep all the sordid aspects of life from her and her sisters. When a murderer starts to stalk their streets, though, all those things that we know the Victorians were really up to, are revealed to the girls.

      For the outspoken Charlotte, it introduces her to Inspector Thomas Pitt and in probably one of the lowest key romances ever, the two fall in love.

      The actual mystery itself is average as mysteries. I feel the mystery portion of most Anne Perry works to be just average. What she does well (in my opinion) is to create interesting characters and accurate period detail.

      Since Perry is a rather prolific author, I'd really like to see is a non-mystery novel from devoted to the issues arising from Charlotte and Pitt declaring their intention to wed and the problems Charlotte had adjusting to working class life when she clearly wasn't trained for it.

      By the way this book was made into a mystery movie, which is currently available from A&E and probably other places as well.

    Book preview

    The Cater Street Hangman - Anne Perry

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