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gadrake 's review for:
Death in Focus
by Anne Perry
This first book in a series by the prolific Anne Perry is actually the first book I have read by this acclaimed author though have always been highly aware of her work.
The cover is misleading a bit which unfortunately had the effect of setting me up not to care for this novel. Authors have no say over the covers. It suggests something a bit more lighthearted and Nancy Drew like. Thankfully, this has substance.
Elena Standish is a spunky, cute well-drawn protagonist but she quickly shows deeper qualities such as family loyalty, high moral capacity, empathy, compassion, sadness and angst. She manages to accidentally become entwined with MI6 multiple times in the period leading into WW-II. It is when she goes to Berlin to offset an assassination attempt that the story becomes the excellent mystery it truly is.
There is steady low-grade tension throughout as Elena navigates unknown territory. Who are the good guys? Of special value is her insights as a British citizen objectively viewing the famous burning of the books, helping a German-Jewish citizen recover from torture in the midnight hour, and her own interrogation. Elena is a photographer and captures the growing enthusiasm for Hitler. Her own family members are intriguing as well and reveal the conflicting feelings of British citizens in the years between the great wars.
If there is a critique, it is that this story hovers between being a dark war mystery and being a bit neutral-Agatha Christie-like with suggestions that the bad guys could be any character(s). Glad there is no butler, because he didn't do it.
This will likely be a successful series. For fans of Maisie Dobbs and Bess Crawford series.
The cover is misleading a bit which unfortunately had the effect of setting me up not to care for this novel. Authors have no say over the covers. It suggests something a bit more lighthearted and Nancy Drew like. Thankfully, this has substance.
Elena Standish is a spunky, cute well-drawn protagonist but she quickly shows deeper qualities such as family loyalty, high moral capacity, empathy, compassion, sadness and angst. She manages to accidentally become entwined with MI6 multiple times in the period leading into WW-II. It is when she goes to Berlin to offset an assassination attempt that the story becomes the excellent mystery it truly is.
There is steady low-grade tension throughout as Elena navigates unknown territory. Who are the good guys? Of special value is her insights as a British citizen objectively viewing the famous burning of the books, helping a German-Jewish citizen recover from torture in the midnight hour, and her own interrogation. Elena is a photographer and captures the growing enthusiasm for Hitler. Her own family members are intriguing as well and reveal the conflicting feelings of British citizens in the years between the great wars.
If there is a critique, it is that this story hovers between being a dark war mystery and being a bit neutral-Agatha Christie-like with suggestions that the bad guys could be any character(s). Glad there is no butler, because he didn't do it.
This will likely be a successful series. For fans of Maisie Dobbs and Bess Crawford series.