Highgate Rise by Anne Perry

Highgate Rise is the eleventh novel in a series of thirty two, featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. Thomas Pitt, the son of a former gamekeeper, but educated as a gentleman is an Inspector in the London Metropolitan Police, based at Bow Street Police Station. Charlotte Pitt, his wife, was born of the upper middle class, with a sister Emily previously married to a Lord.

In this novel, it is autumn 1888 and Jack the Ripper is committing his crimes in Whitechapel, but far from the East End of London, Inspector Pitt is directed to investigate the death of Clemency Shaw, the wife of Dr Stephen Shaw in an arson attack in affluent Highgate. Clemency Shaw, the granddaughter of the deceased Bishop Augustus Worlingham, has been investigating the owners of East End slums. So, the question facing Pitt, is whether the intended victim of the arson attack was Clemency Shaw by slum landlords, or Dr Shaw.

There is not a lot of actual police detecting in the novel, as Perry uses Charlotte Pitt’s family and their social connections to interact with Highgate society for insights for her husband, as to possible perpetrators of the crime.

As with all the novels in this series, Anne Perry uses a geographic setting in London, both as the title and the scene of the crime, while also examining larger political, social, cultural and economic issues in Victorian society, in this case slum profiteering and the emergence of Fabian socialism. While the next novel in the series, Belgrave Square is critically regarded as a breakthrough novel, Highgate Rise is worth a read in itself and for the development of the series characters.

Reviewed by Stuart McMartin
SMSA Member