Monday With Kaye: "Treason at Lisson Grove" by Anne Perry (Reviewed by Kaye George)

Since back in February, Monday in these parts has been made a little more bearable by it also being “Monday With Kaye.” Each week she has brought another book our way to consider. Today marks the 42^nd of such posts and the first of the final three as Kaye has told me she is running out of reviews. Not surprising since she is busy writing her own books and doing other things.

It has been a privilege and an honor to bring these reviews to you. In this season of giving thanks, I must once again express my gratitude to Kaye for allowing me to run these reviews as well as the good folks of Suspense Magazine for allowing them to appear here.

Enough from me… on to the review of a historical thriller….

Treason at Lisson Grove by Anne Perry

We're treated to a new Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novel in this historical thriller. Lisson Grove is the location of Pitt's organization, always called Special Branch. In the bang-up beginning, Pitt and Gower, another agent, pursue a man they witnessed standing over a newly dead body. The chase takes them

across the channel to St. Malo in France. There, a plot seems to be gathering head, something boding of violence and a fundamental change that, once done, may not be able to be undone.

Pitt is set adrift, cut off from his employer and his family, not knowing who he can trust.

Back home, Victor Narraway, Pitt's superior is floudering, running into charges and accusations that he can't fight. When he informs Charlotte that Pitt has been suddenly called overseas, and when she realizes what an awful situation Narraway is in, she feels she must help him--partly for his sake, but also because Pitt's job depends on Narraway's continued employment. The roots of the present-day plot seem intertwined with an old episode that took place during a thwarted Irish uprising. So Narraway and Charlotte, posing as half-siblings, take off for Dublin where feeling still run deep against the English--and Narraway in particular. Now it's Charlotte who doesn't know who she can trust.

To complicate things even more, Charlotte's housekeeper, whom the family doesn't care for anyway, quits suddenly and Charlotte must provide for someone to watch the children, Jemima and Daniel. A charming new character, Minnie Maude, is introduced and saves the domestic day.

Narraway's problems, it becomes evident, are becoming looming problems also for Pitt. Disaster piles atop disaster and the targets shift and remain unclear as Charlotte and Pitt, separately, try to save their country from a treacherous, treasonous plot. Perry is still at the top of her form.

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Choke, for Suspense Magazine