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A review by dmturner
Callander Square by Anne Perry
4.0
A nice sequel, second in the series, clearly written (the occasional typo, for which I fault her copy editor, if there was one), and with appealing development of the characters we met in the first book. The story is set in a quiet, affluent London square with houses set around a square where bodies were found by gardeners. The author makes good use of her main characters.
I had to write out an index card early on in the book, to keep track of all the various families that inhabit the 7 occupied houses. It's pretty bewildering. Even with the index card for reference, I got people confused, partly because the author laid out a web of relationships and history I had to keep track of, including the disappeared inhabitant of the 8th house. I was able to figure it out by the end of the story, pretty much.
The author does a good job of making the women in the book rounded characters, constrained by the injustices and roles of the period but nonetheless able to take action within those constraints; she didn't make the mistake so many do of giving female characters more physical freedom than actually pertained to them. Her male characters are also not bad, and she manages to convey their unquestioning acceptance of privilege and their condescension to the women in their lives without making them cartoonish.
I had to write out an index card early on in the book, to keep track of all the various families that inhabit the 7 occupied houses. It's pretty bewildering. Even with the index card for reference, I got people confused, partly because the author laid out a web of relationships and history I had to keep track of, including the disappeared inhabitant of the 8th house. I was able to figure it out by the end of the story, pretty much.
The author does a good job of making the women in the book rounded characters, constrained by the injustices and roles of the period but nonetheless able to take action within those constraints; she didn't make the mistake so many do of giving female characters more physical freedom than actually pertained to them. Her male characters are also not bad, and she manages to convey their unquestioning acceptance of privilege and their condescension to the women in their lives without making them cartoonish.